The Devil You Know
by ShadowStabbing2012
Summary: Transmigration, disambiguation, thoughtforms and events greater than ourselves. For every action there is an equal & opposing reaction, always a balance though the act of creation is often more dangerous than the act of destruction. And it only takes one.
1. Prologue

**The Devil You Know**

Existing without sensation was disconcerting only if one had never experienced feeling- or if one never remembered it to begin with.

He had existed without sensation for so long, he did not remember _remembering_ if he had ever felt it. His existence had been spread out with small patches of _awareness_ strewn haphazardly throughout his mind. All at once, he had Not Been and then he Was.

There were moments within those small patches of Awareness where he had seen and heard and experienced Experience, _lived_ Sensation. He had touched many lives, influenced many minds, battled enemies, fallen from impossible heights, been the object of scorn, mockery, fascination, and hatred, had been mounted among the gallery of faces all with the name of Evil. He only saw these things when he was disturbed. He was only disturbed when a mind reached out to him. Never was he in control of these things, never did he have a choice.

He knew many things.

He did not know how he knew these things, only that one moment, much like his existing and not existing, he recalled not knowing and then his knowing.

His consciousness was shaped by the minds that reached out to him. They gave him a home, a place that was at once dark and cold, or hot and rank. Sometimes he lived among the People of the Minds. Their heads were his home and he breathed the things they spoke of and became the bane and the figurehead for their actions and their fears.

Through these things, he learned. They were his creators and his teachers, his servants, his lovers and his foes.

But that all came in fragments. It had been slow going at first. Then the momentum grew and soon minds everywhere reached out to him and he found a _disconcerting_ sense of Sensation changing his perceptions of things he had known.

Then the world that was his birthplace, the sepia static void that was always full of Empty until it was full of visiting minds instead, fell away from him. Or he fell away from it.

He recognized the place he landed in only because he had Seen it in the minds, hearts and eyes of the ones that called to him.

In their thoughts he had heard the name of the place, Earth. He tasted the name on his tongue. He had not had a tongue before, taste was a new experience for him. He decided he liked it.

It did not take him long to discover the five senses his creators were born with.

It did not take him long to learn how to reach into the minds of these same creators, as they had once done to him. He taught them the senses in ways they had never considered.

He soon learned that no longer was he bound to the pages of some book or the names that had been stamped on it.

He soon learned that no longer was he bound to the Will of his creators. He could reverse the roles and he did just that with ease.

When he developed a body, he found it was easier to make an impact on the place called Earth. He made many vessels, donning the bodies of all the aspects attributed to his person and he played with the names given him. He became a dancer of masks, the faces bleeding into each other as the fragments of awareness had eventually seeped and given birth to Him, freeing him from that sepia prison.

The qualities the People of the Minds had given him were at once liberating and limiting in their distinctions. He was attributed with things like ambition, pride, cunning, the patient scholarly gentility of a knowledgeable professor with a serious dark side, some all-encompassing characteristic named after a Prince _Machiavelli_…

Utilizing these qualities made him stronger. He built an army.

No one, it turned out, was surprised to learn he had come to their world. It was amusing to him that they had thought he'd _always_ been there when he was quite new.

Perhaps it was poetic justice that The-Devil-They-Had-All-Thought-They-Knew-Would-Come-To-Destroy-Them would be a self-fulfilled prophecy of their own making.

He looked out over the world he had changed and turned his multi-faceted face upwards, past the rain-full clouds and into the vast prison of darkness and stars he falsely remembered falling from.

If he was real now and Earth dealt all things in sympathetic balance, then it seemed his work was far from over…


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

'Charade' was a good word to summarize her life.

'Liar' was a good word to summarize her.

She flipped through the dictionary, the parchment dry and cracked. Next to her, the mug of coffee smelled stale and she figured it was. She'd been lying on the common room floor for hours, listless, sleepless, despondent.

The Gryffindor Tower was silent, its occupants fast asleep, as she should be. Even the fire rested, having given up its half-hearted attempts to keep her company.

"Traitor." She breathed the word, afraid to give it too much power, too much thought. A finger brushed the letters and the customary paranoia of guilt made her skin prickle. Gilded brown eyes flashed around the empty room and she snapped the book shut with half a mind to burn the thing.

So many years, the same guilt, the same thoughts, the same words…

Even when she had consciously decided to pick the one side, the _good _side, her friends over her desires, she subconsciously found herself acting or thinking or talking like the side her desires longed for. Her life seemed to be one great circus of misdirection.

_He_ wanted her to be informed so she could aid Him better. But no matter how she fought against Him, tried to distract herself from being the worst sort of person, a traitor, she found herself studying so very hard, _all the time_.

_He_ wanted her to be powerful so no one could stand against them and take her away from Him again. She thought Him a liar and fought against that too. But when the sneaking, intelligent reasoning slipped into her mind that _maybe_ He was saying that so she would stay weak so he could get to her friends with her out of the way, she decided it would be better to get powerful for her own reasons.

But no matter how she reasoned, He still got what He wanted because she still became powerful.

She did not know what drew Him to her in the beginning. He would never answer her. And there was so much she did not know.

She smirked. _That_ would astound her friends- The Things Hermione Granger _Didn't_ Know.

She was young when He came to her the first time.

Back then, He kept their contact slightly more chaste, but not by much. He enthralled her with His every move, every word spoken, every dark, intense look.

Hermione had always craved knowledge. She couldn't blame Him for that. He had simply to feed her desire to learn and He did it liberally. He made reading a book look glamorous.

His classic good looks never hurt the image He built for her twelve year old mind and the cultured manner of speaking, tasteful expressions, refined bearing and just about every other detail someone like _Him_ could think of -which was substantial- had her more enraptured than before.

The disarming quality of His smile when He told her to call Him 'Tom' merely endeared Him to her more. 'Tom', after all, was not the name of a villain. It was not the name of anybody. It was ordinary and personal and she wasn't so afraid of Him anymore. She began to desire His company.

At first, Tom would only teach her things. Hermione had known at a very young age that she was more powerful than the other children, smarter too. That knowledge compounded when she learned she was a witch and she began going to Hogwarts.

He came to her before she received her letter.

The first time Hermione had ever done magic by her own Will was the first time she discovered addiction first-hand. He was there coaching her on the whole time.

The second time she'd done it was outside of the astral world Tom always took her to when He wanted to meet with her. It was in her backyard and the neighbor boy was making fun of her hair. He'd thrown mud at her.

She didn't know what she planned to do to the boy, she only knew that her handsome friend had told her she was allowed to do whatever she wanted to anyone who was beneath her so long as she was discreet. He'd mentioned something about public opinion and leadership policies but she didn't remember much of that. Who was more beneath her than this primitive boy that threw mud like an ape and what was more discreet than magic?

Hermione remembered feigning ignorance and sympathy when the boy's mother came looking for him later on that evening and again several days later. Hermione knew they'd never find him.

Her handsome friend was less pleased than she thought He'd be with her. He congratulated her on her ability to think as far forward as a caveman and He questioned her on how she planned to explain her use of magic on the boy if she'd been caught. She had no answer for Him and He patronizingly patted her head.

After magic, Hermione's second lesson was on penalty. Later, Tom told her it was important she understood consequence. Price.

She learned there were many different kinds of consequences and that Price didn't always have to be a punishment.

On her thirteenth birthday, when she began her first cycle, Tom taught her pleasure. At first, there was nothing pleasing about it. But He told her that the pain was the price to pay for the pleasure that would come after. There was a balance to everything.

He did not come to her like that again. When He took her virginity He had come to her as an invisible man. His invisibility made Him no less physical and therefore made her experience no less real. Hermione often imagined that the price He paid to be able to come to her in such a manner was not one He could afford to repeat regularly. That did not stop Him from taking her often in their astral meeting place.

Their relationship changed after that. Interacting with Tom had always been an intimate experience for her but now their dealings were downright private.

Then He began to tell her stories of such proportions that Hermione, being a logical girl, was obliged to think of them as only stories. But He persisted in these embellished tellings until she had them memorized and her heart would ache for the characters, until she would dream and daydream of their dramatic lives, and she would feel a kinship with them, a sense of rightness rooted in His words burrowing into her soul.

Then Tom began to act strangely. This was her second year and the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. Both of them were distracted but it was Hermione who did not notice as much. Afterward, it was revealed that Ginny Weasley had opened the Chamber and Hermione learned the identity of Tom Riddle.

Her own Tom did not visit her for a week after Harry rescued Ginny. When He did come to her, His visits not at all hindered by her petrified state, He was short with her, impatient, His carefully planned lessons were hard and if she failed, it was decided she had not retained her lesson on punishment.

The summer after her second year was not very pleasant for Hermione but after only a few weeks Tom was Himself again and Hermione was so relieved she was quick to forgive Him.

Hermione never asked Tom about the Chamber of Secrets like she had wanted to but she thought she knew the explanation anyway. She buried the answer deep inside herself and busied herself with her studies.

The threat of Voldemort grew with every year that passed. She and Tom had often discussed the hypothetical but one day, she could not avoid bringing up the real life circumstances.

"What if I'm killed Tom?" She'd demanded of Him, near hysterics. He'd looked amused, glancing at her over the top of His book.

"What if you are?" He had patiently asked.

Hermione wasn't sure. She furrowed her brow.

"Well what was the _point_?" She burst out. "Why does all this," -she gestured around them and between them- "feel so important, like there's going to be something worthwhile that's going to happen? If I just _die_, if Voldemort just _kills_ me then was there ever a point?"

Tom, in His deliberate way, marked the page of the book and set it down, features smooth and easy. He took her hand and touched her face with the other. "Hermione, Voldemort won't kill you."

He leaned back and made to pick up His book again.

"Tom!" Hermione pushed the book back down onto the table, ignoring the impatient flash of His eyes. They stared at each other for a moment and He smirked.

"I suppose you have a valid reason for thinking that Voldemort would want to target you?"

Hermione frowned at His humbling tone, easing back into her place on the floor at His feet. She folded her arms and glared at the fire.

"Ok, so I figured I wasn't important enough for him to kill me himself but his Death Eaters might like to have a go. I am a mudblood."

Tom snorted, somehow managing to still sound elegant. "Is that all? You think that the Dark Lord would want you dead because of your blood?"

"Blood is the reason he waged this war, Tom." Hermione reminded Him. "Of course that's why he'd want me dead. And I'm Harry's best friend."

"Ah," Tom sighed. "The Boy Wonder." He had made it no secret between them what He thought of Harry. Tom always thought Harry to be a leech, sucking Hermione's glory away from her. She told Him once that she did not want glory, recognition. They both heard the lie and it bothered her more when Tom did not make her admit it. That was, of course, why He did it. They _never_ discussed Ron.

"Harry didn't ask for this, Tom." Hermione started. His dark glare cut her off and she stared at Him, speechless.

"Yes, he did."

She did not attempt to continue the conversation and it was Tom who eventually picked up where they'd left off before she'd tried to defend Harry.

"I suppose you have a sound reason for being targeted." He told her. "A wary eye should always be kept open for ambitious Death Eaters. Enemies of all sorts in fact. Though I must say, this Voldemort sounds like the kind of person to not waste talent. If he were to demand your head, he'd be a fool. Kidnapping sounds more likely." He touched her hair. "You'd be a great asset to his cause, Hermione."

She had scowled and declared she'd never join his side, forgetting for a moment her private realization who Tom was.

They had not discussed it again but Hermione was never attacked, never kidnapped. In her fifth year, at the Department of Mysteries, she'd been conveniently knocked out of the battle before it could really get started. When she came to, it was all over.

Sirius' death was… not as tragic for her. Tom had told her how the Veil worked long before Sirius had fallen into it. She often wondered what limbo would be like, immortality without the ability to live it. A curse, Tom said and He told her it was not an experience to desire.

He was also fairly distracted again but not in so bad a mood as after her second year. He never seemed genuinely concerned with much. Only her lessons and the stories. He'd always ask her what she felt about the stories, every time He'd tell her and she always had the same opinions about them.

In her sixth year, Hermione told Tom that she knew who He was. He had raised an eyebrow and gone back to His book. "I know." That was all He said.

That was also when the guilt began to fester at her conscience. "Fraternizing with the enemy." That had been what Ron accused her of once. He wasn't wrong. He just didn't know how very much she fraternized and with their worst enemy of all.

She used to worry that Voldemort was using her for his own purposes, to weaken Harry's defenses by getting to his closest friends like the diary of Tom Riddle had done to Ginny. But Tom continued to teach her, continued to tell her stories that made her more and more emotional and she _didn't know why_.

On the one hand, Hermione could take Tom's teachings and use them against Him. But she knew it wouldn't be so easy. Tom was powerful. Tom knew her better than she knew herself, He could predict her moves, His confidence in her made her hesitate to act and made her guilty, always guilty, and then there was the fact that she truly… cared. _Cared_ for Tom. To go against Him would be to go against her greatest friend, mentor, lover, _everything_…

And all the while, to keep her secret and to keep Him safe, Hermione applied her greatest ability to her life. Her magic.

Hermione's magic was undetectable unless she chose for it to be otherwise, which she often did so she could misdirect potential enemies. Charms was her special subject, the one she never had to even try in. Naturally, she let everyone believe she excelled best in Arithmancy.

No one was ever the wiser, even Dumbledore who seemed to see through everyone, even Voldemort when he was still Tom Riddle. Perhaps, Tom told her once, Dumbledore was the best deceiver of them all. Hermione didn't disagree.

Taking any eventuality into consideration, she began to rely only on herself, standing alone before anyone else. And so it was, with her subtlety and deception, Hermione pretended to be one girl and on the inside, the real girl was trying to figure out who she wanted to be, who to trust and was altogether quite the opposite of the Hermione Granger everyone in Hogwarts thought her to be.

Harry was never around anymore, either with Ginny or alone and when he was around he always snapped at them and was quick to accuse others of involvement with the Dark Lord. He made her nervous. Ron was as daft as ever but she would not let herself discredit his ability to expose her secret. Just because someone wasn't intelligent didn't mean they lacked in other qualities.

Another lesson of Tom's. She knew how to use anyone. And she did. No one suspected, no one looked at her for what she was. _She_ didn't know what she was. All she really knew was what Tom told her. How she weighed her identity lay in how far she trusted Tom.

Hermione poured the cold coffee into the fire place and stood, tendons snapping against her spine and knees issuing pre-arthritic pops. She stretched and yawned.

This was an old cycle of thought. She would recall her past with Tom in brief highlighted moments, never the entire history, even for her it was a lot of detail to relive as often as she did. Then she would embrace the guilt, try to find it in her to either purge His stain from her soul or give up the tenuous threads of a lie she had built in this life. Either way, she always pressed herself to make a decision and always she would not.

Repeat.

Now, her seventh year was ending and Hermione knew she would no longer have the luxury of vacillating between two vastly different lives. She would be forced to choose and Hermione Granger did not like to be forced. But now that the pressure was growing, Hermione could think more clearly. She had always thrived on pressure.

And she was certainly a traitor.

The seventh year should have been different. She should not have been here, nor Harry or Ron. But she'd done something… bad? She wasn't sure yet.

The Time-Turner had its uses, she'd known that. She'd also learned how to make it go back further than just hours. She'd gone back nearly two years. Back to before Dumbledore could destroy the first horcrux. Back to before Dumbledore acquired the memory that would tell him what to look for in the first place.

She changed everything. Voldemort had time, because Tom knew what she'd done and so because Tom knew, Voldemort knew and he did not take over the school. Dumbledore had still been murdered by Malfoy, but McGonagall was the Headmistress and not Snape. Hogwarts without Dumbledore was not an immediate issue anymore and Potter and Co. were not out looking for pieces of his soul to destroy. Voldemort turned his eye to bigger fish and Tom was very pleased. She was a good girl.

She was a traitor. Maybe.

Her dreams as of late were troubling and Tom visited her now with less frequency, no doubt more immersed in His role as Voldemort.

Harry and Ginny had each other and Ron had Lavender and she had her books and her awful dreams that felt like memories and Tom _did_ say she had been taken from Him before.

Hermione put the dictionary back onto its shelf and stared at the wall of books, inspired. Her dreams felt like memories. Tom spoke of a Before that she could not recall. And there were the stories she was emotionally bound to that He insisted on telling her.

She took about eight quick steps towards the portrait hole when she realized for once the library would not help. She had to go to Tom.

She brought herself up the stairs quietly and into her Head Girl room away from all the others. Lying in a corpse position, she focused on their meeting place and projected her astral body away from herself, calling Him to her as she did so.

It looked like she was about to make her choice.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

They were dancing. Or what one would call dancing. It was the closest thing Hermione could associate to it anyway. They were in the part of the remote mansion that Tom reserved especially for the classic arts. Things like dancing, music, crafts and politics. She assumed by politics He meant Death Eater meetings.

Their astral bodies were off the ground several feet and Tom was holding her close to Him, murmuring one of His stories in her ear.

"… When it was apparent how powerful the two beings were together, the other gods met in secret with grim intent. How could they let this go on? Tiamat, the goddess of Space, was beloved among them and Kingu, the god of Time, less admired only because he was so feared.

"When the gods saw that the two beings had chosen each other, Tiamat overlooking her Twin Flame, the head god's own son, Marduk, in favor of the feared Kingu, Marduk's rage knew no limits. Marduk had gone to Tiamat to plead with her to reconsider but she was resolute in her choice.

"Their arrangement was not genuine, she had reasoned. Twin Flames were energetically compatible, nothing more. She bade Marduk to release her and seek another better suited to him.

"When Marduk returned to his father's temple and told him what had occurred, Enki knew that the union between Space and Time, between Tiamat and Kingu, could not be permitted.

They gathered together their other brethren and collectively conspired to destroy Kingu."

Hermione sighed and lifted her head from Tom's shoulder and He paused, giving her a tolerant look.

"I did not come for a story today." She told Him.

"No?"

"No. I need to know why." She did not have to elaborate, she knew He understood what she meant. Tom always understood.

He lowered them to the floor and placed His hands on either side of her face. "If you haven't figured it out yet, nothing I say will convince you."

Hermione hated when He looked sad. She could never tell if it was fake or not, Tom did everything with purpose and emotions were something He portrayed only when He was sure it would work to His advantage. "As it suits me." That was Tom's personal motto. She couldn't fault it but she couldn't trust it either.

"I need you to trust me." He murmured, bending slightly to stand eye-level to her. She let her forehead rest against His and closed her eyes.

"I don't know if I can." She sighed. "You are as constant as change. How can I trust someone that changes so freely, that never really _cares_ about anything?"

He smirked, gripping her arms and shaking her slightly until she opened her eyes again. "I care about you." He purred. "Us against the world."

Hermione pushed Him away. "Ginny said you told her the same thing in the diary."

Tom scoffed. "Because she needed to hear it. It was true."

"True as long as it suited your purposes Tom!" She exclaimed. "Right now, I suit your purposes but that could change as your plans change."

"My plans do not change." He replied coldly. "They have never changed. I have allowed you to be fickle long enough Hermione, I'm weary of it. If you don't trust me, if you are determined to argue every angle of everything I say then I don't know what to tell you anymore. Why have you come here? You know what I want, you know what I'll say, you know what I'll do. All that's left is the choice."

"And the remembering, right? That's why you always tell me those stories. They're memories, aren't they Tom?"

He eyed her darkly, the slightest of sneers on His patrician features. "What do you think?"

"I think you've been more busy than anyone knows. I think you're older than anyone knows. I think we've known each other longer than I know and I think…" Hermione trailed off, afraid to say it and be wrong, afraid of Him scoffing at her again. She _was_ fickle and she was fearful. She hated that.

What was loyalty to her? Tom came to her before she even _knew_ Harry, how could He have known she'd be a possible tool to destroy His enemy? It was likely that He might have included that in His designs as the scenes played out but what was His original plan for her?

In a burst of clarity, Hermione began to pace. How could Tom _not_ know anything? That was always the question. But the facts were what they were.

The stories. Five years, almost nightly, Tom would tell her those stories. They were not stories. She remembered them. How did she remember them? Maybe Tom was brainwashing her. Five years of the same stories was certainly a long enough time to begin making things real in her mind. Hermione knew from experience and study both that that was how dreams mostly manifested. If you had something stored subconsciously, it would only present itself subconsciously- like in dreams.

Okay. Okay.

Choose Hermione, pick a theory and stick with it. This goes deeper than you know.

"I think," she said again, inhaling deeply, feeling ridiculous as she vocalized her suspicions. "That I was the goddess of Space. You were Kingu, weren't you? I've been dreaming of them, us I mean. But there are so many holes in my memory and I _need_ to know Tom, I _need_ to."

"You will, in time." He smirked at that. "Your school year is drawing to a close, is it not?"

"You know it is."

Tom nodded. Yes, He did know. "I trust you know what comes next."

He was standing close to her again, leading her out of the dance hall and down the gallery into His study. "You must remember everything. Unfortunately, I cannot do this for you. It is for you to discover on your own. Your memories, your Price."

Something in Hermione's chest had eased with the choice she'd made, eased with the realization that she'd made the choice long ago. She looked at Tom as if for the first time, understanding, inherently, that this was indeed bigger than the small population of the wizarding world, bigger than even the entire world, muggle and magical alike. She knew then that Price had _everything_ to do with, well, everything. And she would pay it, every time, any price at all, to keep Him with her and that meant remembering.

She touched His cheek, rested a hand on His arm and stood on her toes to better reach Him. "I will." She whispered.

He closed the distance between their lips with less restraint than she'd seen Him exercise in a long time. Their dynamic had changed sometime between her arrival and their kiss and for the first time, she felt like Tom's equal, a force to be reckoned with.

And the memories came, slowly but they came. And she began to understand Lord Voldemort better, and she began to realize that blood had so very little to do with the war the Dark Lord had waged.

And that it had everything to do with Price.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

She was falling from some impossible height. Numbness where she felt there should have been pain. No screams, only air and ozone breaking her fall, she was burning but unhurt, she was resting in soft green grass but did not remember making impact. A man hovered over her, speaking to her…

"Hermione."

…She didn't like the man, her made her stomach lurch…

"Hermione!"

She couldn't get away from him though and the horrible awareness that she was very helpless began to sink in.

"Hermione Granger!"

The man grabbed her but then it was Ron in his place and he looked annoyed, maybe a little worried.

"What?"

Ron exchanged a look with a sleep deprived Harry. "You were quiet the whole meal. I thought you might've been reading a book in your lap but when we all started to go to class you didn't budge."

Harry sank back next to her on the bench and patted her shoulder. "I've been thinking of ways to stop Voldemort too." He murmured.

Hermione battled the sudden urge to stab him with her fork. There were so many things wrong with that statement, she really didn't want to think about it. And it wouldn't do to go shedding the Chosen One's blood all over the Gryffindor table. There was, after all, only so much PMS could let you get away with.

Yet, a good eighty percent of her _really_ wanted to go ahead and do it anyway. To her surprise, it didn't take much force of will to swallow down that dark urge and she didn't even have to make herself smile at her friends. It came quite easily.

"I'm fine Ron," she assured him. "And Harry, you should really try to get more sleep. He's sure to beat you if you don't save your strength."

She cast a pointed, bossy look at the plate that had yet to be cleared away and pointed at the untouched food.

"I'm sure that starving yourself will make your energy more pure in some circles of belief, but here in the U.K. a good solid meal will keep a wind hex from blasting you away from him in the first three seconds."

"Well, that's not even a funny joke Hermione." Ron said rubbing his forehead. "If you were gonna get all bossy on us, you could have at least named the wind hex."

Laughing, Hermione used this as a distraction to get them off the subject of Voldemort and what she had been thinking about.

"You're right Ron, we should probably go to class then and learn about it shall we?"

She tried not to drift off again during the classes but Hermione was now reasoning with a very persuasive side of herself that insisted that between her own knowledge and Tom's lessons, she could be teaching the professors new tricks.

The point, her persuasive side told her, was that she should be in the library trying to figure out what she was experiencing and how to go about freeing the memories she _knew_ were trapped inside. She was Head Girl and Hermione Granger to boot, ditching class was… bizarre for her according to public opinion- which is what she was worried about- but on the other hand, they had a week left of classes and this was just busy work.

After the teacher dismissed the class, Hermione swirled out of her chair and out the room, tossing a brief "Library" over her shoulder to Harry and Ron.

In the library she experienced something odd that even in her years of _pretending_ to be 'Know it All' Granger, Hermione had never experienced. She stood in the entrance way and genuinely didn't know where to begin her search.

Well, that was a staggering revelation.

Taking things one logical step at a time, as was her way, Hermione traced the familiar route to the back of the room and set her things on the work table. She slid easily into the chair and propped her elbows up, steepled her fingers, rested her chin on them. She stared at a place on her bag that looked stained and did nothing else.

She was perfectly still for quite some time.

The memory- she was sure it was a memory- of her falling and then the man did not come to her again, even as she tried. It seemed as painfully elusive as the knowledge that you had had your I.D. _right here_ and the thing just wouldn't surface, much to the grim satisfaction of the local cop out to make his quota.

Now why could she remember that and not something she had just experienced?

Probably because that memory wasn't over several thousand years ago…

Where had that come from?

The ink stain on her bag began to pulse and take on a new shape of its own. A dark comet tail, a flying serpent, a stream of flame, now a streak of magic, long hair in a strong breeze, a billowing cloak, the flagging tail of a horse, a waving banner rippling high in an early morning sky…

She watched it ripple in the still cold breeze of the desert, her arms wrapped securely around her. The banner had always given her such a bolstering sense of pride. Her Lord was soon to arrive and she breathed deeply, a content smile on her features.

Arms slipped around her waist and she took her time opening her eyes. "It's a lovely morning isn't it Beniel?"

Beniel rarely spoke and even now she felt him nod as he kissed her neck.

"You slept late today." She commented. She always tried to get him to talk and she had succeeded a few times. She knew she was one of few.

Beniel nodded again and released her, walking all the way out onto her balcony and leaning over the rail.

"The King comes soon." He said.

"Yes."

"We have missed His presence this past fortnight."

"Yes."

Beniel turned to look at her, his eyes smiling because his mouth often refused to. She always admired his appearance because she knew that the deepest black had given him his hair and eye color and the stars had gifted his skin with their pale radiance. He made a good assassin and a good lover.

She had several ones such as Beniel. All of them bound blood, heart, and soul to her and her Lord. Her advance guard were bound to her in all the ways leaders wished their protectors would be bound to them.

The element that kept her and her guards close was something her enemies- and even allies -were often surprised to find. That element was Love.

She or her Lord had saved over half of them from some fate or another and they had sworn to save them ever after with their souls, no matter the cost.

And why not? It was a privilege to serve gods.

She kissed Beniel's silent lips and touched his chest. "You may go now. Send the brothers when you have dressed, I will send for the rest of you when the palace activity ceases for the afternoon."

Knowing he was dismissed, Beniel reassumed his soldier's stance and bowed to her. "As my Lady commands."

She turned back to the banner, its eight-pointed star and caduceus dragon motif beginning to show more brightly as the sun rose and turned the sand dunes white in the horizon.

She let the silk sheet drop around her feet and she held her arms wide, letting the warming breeze caress her naked body.

"Mistress." Two pairs of voices said from behind her.

"Rise and approach me." She told the brothers. When they had done so, she turned to them both and covered their hearts with her palms.

"Our Lord comes this day, when the heat has passed over us again. We must prepare a feast for His return. Have our… ah, guests spoken yet?"

"Not as yet, my Lady." The oldest murmured.

"Let us go ourselves and see if they will speak." The youngest, not by much, thumbed his curved blade and grinned.

She smiled. "We will all go. I want answers."

The ink stain on her bag was still, had been still for a while she figured.

Hermione frowned. Was that her then? That… that… what exactly? What was she supposed to make of all of that? The woman she had seen was free in all the ways Hermione wished she could be. The woman was all the things Hermione only felt like when she was with Tom.

The banner was a big hint she figured. The motif had really struck a cord for her and the desert surrounding what little she had seen of her palace. The men… She had seen these men before. Where? A big no-brainer answer would be something along the lines of Death Eaters, but these men weren't… insane.

Shit. Those men she had seen were absolutely insane. Beniel… she couldn't figure who he looked like. If the man hadn't changed his personality in all these years then Hermione assumed Beniel would wear the silver mask whenever the opportunity arose. She had the feeling he'd wear it because it would make him anonymous, not because he was shy.

As for the other two, Hermione knew _exactly_ who they were and _really_ didn't want to be right. Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange. Without a doubt. Double shit.

And she'd had _sex_ with them!

Ok. Hermione allowed herself the human moment of freaking out then she forced herself to acknowledge how stupid she was being.

_Logically_ speaking, sex with either of the Lestrange brothers sounded like… ok, it sounded like fun. Really dangerous, life-threatening fun. Sex with both of them at the same time…

Hermione snapped out of the daydream when she sighed out loud.

What was really scary though was that she had the rather _strong_ impression that Tom was the Lord that was due to arrive. Was she having an affair? That didn't seem likely. The woman, the three men, all seemed to be mutually loyal on a nearly fanatical level to the Lord. And it had been implied in the woman's thought process that there were more…

Oh. _Oh._

Well then. This felt plausible. At least to her at this moment. This Advance Guard of hers was also the Lord's and the thing that kept them all together was Love.

She snorted. Love was not a word she and Tom used. Sometimes she felt like she was the only one who even considered the word. But when she made herself think about it, she supposed it was there. But that made her uncomfortable and so she didn't think about it a lot.

Alright then. In brief summary: Hermione was some queen of a desert place so many thousands of years ago. She had a personal guard that also served as a harem and her husband- the Lord due to return- was fine with this, hell, maybe He joined them. They apparently had prisoners that needed questioning that weren't talking and she needed to know the answer before her Lord returned. The motif on the banner was familiar and the three men of the personal guard were familiar.

Was this a past life memory returning? Yes. She had no doubt. Even now, bits of knowledge were slipping into her mind as though they'd always been there.

The banner. She needed to check the banner.

Hogwarts Library was vast and full of all kinds of things, unfortunately, a lot of books had been removed since the start of the war, entire categories even, but for once Hermione was very grateful to the purebloods who fought against the removal of the history of their Moste Ancient of Houses or however they felt it should have been called.

As Hermione pawed through the scrolls, this act jarring smaller memories loose, she found the caduceus symbol but it was made from a golden staff and two serpents, not dragons. The eight-pointed star was also found but it was used with a rabbit and a dove and annoyed her instantly. The motif she had seen was an eight-pointed star and the center north and south pole of the star was a sword where two dragons wrapped around it like a double-helix or an Ouroboros.

_That_ motif was nowhere to be seen. _Shit_.

If wizarding history didn't have it… but wait. Tom told the story as if they were gods. Even in her memory, she had thought of herself and Tom as gods.

So she'd try the mythology section.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Hermione never could tell how she came to be in the astral world with Tom. He had always been in control of that, always been the one to let her come or to send her away. Yet, here she was now, suddenly in a position she'd not been in when she fell asleep and the location was somewhere she'd not been yet in His vast residence.

As always in these visits, Hermione saw her surroundings before she heard them and always, feeling came last. So lastly, as before, she began to feel.

She was naked, standing against a cold stone wall and low torches mounted on black iron sconces warmed the earthen air. Sharp pangs in her abdomen had her breathing slowly to ease the pain and then she felt the wetness on her thighs and the softness of something brushing against her hip.

Tom, in a weird reversal of roles, was kneeling before her, naked as well and at this image she felt the heat blossom in her core, easing the sharp abdominal pains as they came.

He murmured something to her but she couldn't make it out.

He had lifted one leg and draped it over His shoulder, tracing the tip of His tongue over her inner thigh. That was when she saw that the wetness dripping down her thigh was blood. She was on her moon time.

Knee-jerk reaction had her moving to push Him away from her center, almost embarrassed by this extremely carnal intimacy. The flash of His dark grey eyes gone nearly black had her leaning back again, understanding the warning for what it was.

He cleaned the blood from her thighs with a sensual precision that made Hermione swear to herself she'd never curse another period again.

"Your fertile time is what I need." He purred against her core. She shuddered but the firm hold He kept on her hips told her to listen, she would be wise to remember His words.

"The moon," He kissed her pelvis, "The blood," He kissed her center again, "Rebirth."

Hermione watched as His skin glowed in the low torch light and knew it was the power of her moon blood that was making this happen. Her power was going to Him, feeding Him. To what end?

"Tom…"

He hushed her with a not-so-gentle nip and she saw stars.

"Have faith, Hermione. We are so close. Keep remembering, then we can return as we were. Find the other halves, find them and we will return."

Tom wasn't speaking very clearly. Not for Him anyway. Was He drunk on her moon energy? Why wouldn't He let her speak?

Again, stars exploded behind her eyes and this time the astral world around them shuddered with her and she felt it fall away from her.

Sitting up in bed, Hermione looked around at the quiet Head Girl room. He had sent her away. Taken something from her that- admittedly- she didn't need, pleasured her twice and just sent her off again.

What was He up to?

Alright, so Tom was always up to something, rarely did He tell her what those things were, so none of this behavior was new… yet, this really bothered her.

Abruptly, Hermione remembered something He'd said to her at the beginning of the school year. He'd been in a particularly good mood that day, going so far as to laugh and laugh and speak of things as if she had any idea what He was talking about, as if she had been in on it from the beginning with Him.

Maybe she had been, but it wasn't like Tom to forget that someone didn't know things.

He had been sitting in His study, as was their usual meeting place, the high wing back chair fitting His shape perfectly and He'd held a snifter of Calvados, the fire crackling gaily in the hearth.

That, Hermione thought now, should have been her first hint. The fire always matched Tom's mood in the astral world.

"What are you so pleased about?" She'd asked Him, already feeling a grin split over her face. Tom's moods were contagious to her.

He had laughed, low and deep and gestured for her to come around to face Him. She had graduated from sitting at His feet a while ago but sometimes she still did it just to be nearer to Him than another chair ever allowed.

"She's going to take care of everything for us." He'd chuckled. "This time, the blood won't have to be on our hands, she's going to do everything, all we need to do is be there to offer our support to the survivors when she does."

He poured her a glass and she sniffed at it, smirking at Him. Hermione didn't ask Him who He meant, or what this woman was going to do, she felt like she should already know. She did ask Him how many snifters He'd gone through and even that hadn't fazed Him enough to glare at her.

He had shrugged as eloquently as you please and admitted He had forgotten it was even in His hand. "But you go on and try it, if you don't like it I won't bother."

Hermione murmured a "Cheers" and sipped a little, savoring it. "Is that apple?"

Tom nodded, watching the fire reflect in the liquor. "Double distilled," He said, "From Lower Normandy."

They sipped in silence before the fire flared again and Tom began to chuckle. "This is more than we could have hoped for." He told her.

"If we can get _Her_ to aid us, the battle is as good as won. I never minded playing the scapegoat, I didn't even mind being the arch villain, but this…" Another rich laugh. "This is…"

Tom frowned and stood up, pacing the length of floor between the fire, the chairs and coffee table.

"It could be a trap." He paused, then shook His head, discarding the idea as quickly as it came.

"No, she's not that devious. She's too honest, too pure… She's been hiding too long, won't know who to trust. Hermione, we'll have to win her over with the Truth."

Hermione raised an eyebrow and forced back a swallow of the burning alcohol. She'd been with Him long enough to humor and support His moments of thinking out loud.

"Is the Truth on our side?" She asked Him in what she hoped was a supportive, yet neutral tone.

It never did well to sound too invested in an idea of Tom's before it had taken root in His mind. He was quick to reject them and then you'd better believe you'd never live down the haranguing He'd give you for being a narrow-minded Yea-sayer.

Tom scoffed. "Come now, you know better than that. If the Truth is not already with us, then we'll make it so it looks like it's with us. The position of the Truth is not my concern, Hermione."

Hermione sighed- quietly. "Then what are you concerned with?"

"We may not be the first to make the attempt at deceiving her."

Hermione grinned at Him and raised her glass. "That may be why she doesn't know who to trust. Better just tell her the Truth, as it stands with us, and let her make her own decision. You said yourself that the blood would be on her hands this time, that lets me believe that either way, she'll be doing something in our favor. Whether she's for us or against us is mostly irrelevant. We were fairly certain we'd win before she came into the picture…"

Hermione trailed off when she realized Tom had been staring at her and wasn't hearing what she'd been saying. From the look in His eyes, He had _just_ had an epiphany.

"I have a plan," He said, not a moment later, "I need to think about it. Goodnight Hermione."

And like He'd just done, He had sent her off without another word. She never did learn who that woman was or what He planned to do. She had even asked.

But Tom was a buried vault. If He didn't want you to know something, you just weren't going to know. Period.

So perhaps that was what He was doing now. Maybe Tom was doing something related to the woman that they had spoken of nearly an entire school year ago. After all, Tom's plans tended to be on the long term side, He always made sure every back-up plan had a back-up plan. And He _had_ seemed… distracted.

Her instructions were clear in any case.

Remember.

_Remember_.

Like it was so bloody easy. It wasn't for her to know Tom's plans because it wasn't like she'd understand them anyway. Didn't He tell her, patiently, every time, that He couldn't tell her the answers because she wouldn't believe Him? His plans were directly related to all of those memories, so He couldn't tell her those either because she would only bother Him with questions that she could solve for herself if she'd only work a little harder at _remembering_ the solutions.

Once she remembered everything, Tom wouldn't brush her off every time something came up, she could be with Him more, she could actually help Him instead of Him having to help her all the time. It was downright embarrassing now.

Hermione sighed. She was being hormonal. She needed to go take care of the mess she was making too, her thighs were clean but not for long and her sheets were already stained.

"Scourgify!" She said when she came back from the bathroom.

Nothing.

"_Scourgify!_"

Still nothing. She stared at the wand and tapped the tip lightly on her palm.

This time… "_Scourgify!_"

Okay… She pointed the wand at a sheaf of parchment on her desk, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The parchment lifted and floated around, sinking back into a neat pile when she lowered them.

Now then. "_Scourgify! __**Scourgify!**_"

Fine. This wand was fucking with her. It had to be. Furious, she tossed it across the room where it clattered noisily and rolled under her four poster.

"Watch this," she told the wand. "It's called Muggle Magic." She snatched the sheets off the bed and into the bathroom where she filled the tub with cold water and dropped the stained blankets in to soak.

Red faced, hair a tangle and chest heaving, Hermione wondered why she freaked out. She could have left the sheets in the basket for the House Elves to clean, like always.

There was no reason for this… temper tantrum.

"Hermione, you need to think. Sit down and just think."

Sinking onto the cold toilet, Hermione did just that, waxing pensive being a favorite past time of hers as of late.

She stared at the red and gold tile. She didn't like red and gold so much. She liked lions, but lions didn't seem very… red and gold to her. She understood the association, certainly, but to her, Hermione, lions seemed more- what was the word?- not color associable. That didn't change the fact that she still associated them with the same color scheme as everyone else in the world, but she supposed it was because royalty had multiple faces and lions were just lions, damn it. They represented strength and that was it. They weren't courageous. They were survivalists. All animals were. Lions relied on the strength of their pride (ha ha) to get through life.

Now that was interesting. Without their pride, a lion was dead. Pride the emotion or Pride the group? One breeds the other, perhaps.

Why did Hermione feel the need to justify every belief she had? Because no one would let her rest with saying that she just believed it.

Well, _not_ anymore.

Hermione didn't like Gryffindors. When this self-debate became about Gryffindors, Hermione didn't know. She didn't care. It had _always_ been about Gryffindors. At least snakes were up front about what they were. Even when they played dead, by their very phenotype alone, they were up front about what they were and it was your own fault for messing with them.

Eagles were like feathered lions with the brains of a snake inside. That was probably why they got along so well with everyone. Forget never trusting a Snake, you should never trust an Eagle.

Badgers… well what was there to say about badgers? They were loners and introverted herb gatherers. They didn't care about other people's problems, if they were left alone, the better for everyone. Badgers were the worst kind of neutralists.

But, Hermione knew that none of that was the point. The point was that her wand wouldn't let her do a simple cleansing charm and she never liked the four houses mascots, colors, or the people they represented. She probably liked the Slytherin mascot and colors better than anything and that was only because they were the most honest about being dishonest.

Hermione craved honesty. Why couldn't people just be honest with her? Well, to be fair, she hadn't ever been honest with them.

Coming to terms with something deep inside herself, Hermione acknowledged that she didn't care about that. She was a hypocrite and that was ok. So long as it was only her. The fact that she knew that she was worse than most of the people in her life and didn't care, _accepted_ it even, eased yet another knot of tension she didn't know she had.

The things she'd been remembering, the things she and Tom had worked toward for _years_ were finally coming to a head and Hermione knew, deep in her bones, that what was coming, what they were going to bring to the people, was bigger than anything anyone had ever known.

"Accio Wand."

The wood was worn smooth in her hands as she turned it over and over again, examining the tool she'd used to work magic since learning she was a witch.

It was a stick. The power was in her, Tom always told her. It was focused through the stick because she _believed _that she had to focus her power through the stick.

"Tool is a tactful word for Crutch." Hermione murmured, stroking the length of the wand. She felt the power in her rising up, rushing around her ears in great pulses and the tool in her hands quivered.

"You will only hold me back. That cannot be allowed."

The wand, a hardy little branch, chosen for its versatility, thought it heard more than its mistress' voice speaking at that moment. A multi-layered quality had entered the room as she spoke and the power building in her hands was burning its body. If she tried to work that much through it, the wand knew it would surely brake.

It felt that that was her intent.

When the rushing pulse reached a crescendo, the wand tried to ride through the release but there was no conditioning for such an amount.

Hermione lay against the cool tiles of her bathroom floor and smiled, ignoring the ashes on her hands.

This time when she slept the memories came in waves, like the power she had released from her body. She would have to ride it out or drown in the swell of the Price she had agreed to pay.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Hermione had struggled the next morning. It was a task and a half to get down to the library and then she had simply collapsed into her chair and rested her throbbing head in the crook of her arms. She felt hung over, or hung over and still gone and donated blood…

Blood.

Had Tom done something that would affect her this way? It didn't seem likely but then… well, it was Tom.

"Oh please," A voice said very clearly in her head. "That's like saying humans can't help making foolish choices because they're only human."

"_Tom_?" Hermione hissed, looking around the dark library. He could not be here. That would be so bad.

She heard Him snort. "Don't worry _dear_, I won't blow your cover yet. I'm still safely removed from affecting anyone's comfort zone."

"You've never done this before. Talked to me in my head like this. Is it because of the blood you took?"

"That's not _why_ I took it, but I do like the side-effect. Very useful. I can do this all day actually, but I have a lot of preparations to make so spare me your ire. Anyway, you were wondering if the ritual we did could explain your current infirmity. Based on everything you did after I sent you back to this plane, I'd say that you had a mild nervous breakdown due to forcing the return of your memories. Then you had a _breakthrough_, magically speaking of course, and went and incinerated your wand. A sound choice I might add, it was a child's thing.

"However," He added, sounding a little concerned. "I'd like you to take it easy Hermione. By all means, continue the work you've been doing, Time _is_ of the essence, but remember to eat _your_ meals as well, hmm?"

He had seen that too? He chuckled and Hermione knew He could see anything she had seen, possibly always could but the blood He'd taken had amplified that ability.

"Tom," Something He'd said was bothering her. "What do you mean you're still safely removed from affecting anyone's comfort zone? You're still running around as Voldemort aren't you?"

There was a hesitation, as though He wanted to comment on the 'running around' part. Then, "Of course I am."

His presence faded from her head and she sensed He was thinking of something to say. She waited, eyes flicking around the library every now and again.

"Do you think I would not come for you if I were fully myself? As it is, I need you to do that for me. Right now, I've only been able to possess people or fashion for myself a temporary body using the so-called darkest of magics. I myself am not yet fully free, just a corner of my mind. Only _you_, Hermione, can bring me back to this world completely, just as I have brought you back."

He had effected this much of the world with only a _fraction_ of His mind? What devastation could He bring if He were fully Himself on this plane?

"What devastation can _We_ bring, is what you mean to say." Tom purred. "And the answer is: Only what is due."

He left her mind again after that and she knew He did not mean to continue speaking with her, going about His business as He had said He intended.

Hermione's head still pounded and she dug her fingers into the base of her skull, releasing knots of pressure until her fingers ached instead. She rubbed each one alternately and gazed around the room. This time, Hermione was not looking for potential eavesdroppers.

The mythology section was little help. Mostly because she didn't know enough to look for anything in particular. There were tons of mythical desert empires, tons of goddess-queens that had bodyguard-harems. None of them resonated. Nothing in her memories had given a serviceable clue as to where to begin.

History, she knew, was always written by the winners. When Tom spoke of those things to her, mentioning how she had been taken from Him more than once, Hermione had the sense that they had lost, or been separated to survive the loss.

And of course, the memory versions of herself were not exactly kind. It was likely that- even though _her_ memory of most events were peaceful- she had not given peace to others.

The mass mind of the populace, being a capricious thing, was probably not eager to be their subject for long. Tyranny was frowned upon for a reason and people have gone against their gods just as fiercely as they are wont to fight for them. If she and Tom lost, whatever defeated them had more than likely erased them from the history books.

An ancient annoyance sunk into her at this and Hermione scowled.

Desert people were the worst, that ancient annoyance told her.

Deserts were the wombs of religion and religion was the opium of the masses. She had heard those sayings sporadically throughout her life and Hermione never found them to be truer than now.

The decline of the East was proof enough of what opium could and had done to entire civilizations. It was, she had learned, first cultivated in lower Mesopotamia in 3,400 B.C. where the Sumerians referred to it as _Hul Gil_, the "joy plant."

Like fiendfyre, the Sumerians soon passed it on to the Assyrians who in turn passed it on to the Egyptians. All along the Silk Road, from the Mediterranean through Asia and finally to China where it became the catalyst for the Opium Wars of the mid-1800s. And just look at the devastation it left in its wake.

Hermione made a mental note to tell Voldemort to just give everyone opium and the war would be taken care of for them.

She paused. Someone was already going to take care of it though, wasn't she?

Coming full circle, Hermione forced her thoughts to slow to a halt, freezing in place as her mind systematically clicked over the information in rapid succession, highlighting key words as it went.

_Myth. Deserts. Desert people. Ancient wars. Gods. Tyranny. Religion. Wombs. Mesopotamia. Sumerians. __**Myth.**_

When reading through the mythology books, Hermione had come across one that had made her lip curl in the ancient emotion of hatred.

The Epic of Gilgamesh. She had never liked it. But something about it had made her look at it. It was a Mesopotamian story. Gilgamesh was a hero, yet a war-monger.

_Not Gilgamesh though_. She pleaded in her head. _Please not Gilgamesh._

Drifting over to it again, Hermione hefted the tome and glared at the cover. Inside, she found references to the ancient Sumerian pantheon, some words that resonated with her very deeply.

_Inanna, Ishtar, Tiamat, Marduk… _There, at that last name, Hermione's breath caught on a terrible rage that left her quaking. The book nearly tumbled from her grasp. Carefully, she set it down on her table and inhaled.

She kept inhaling, and just could not make herself exhale.

Tom's stories had contained those names but they never effected her like this before.

_You've never known what you now know before either_, her voice hissed.

Her breath came out in a steady, deliberate stream, even though her lungs screamed for fresh air at once. She counted four heart beats and inhaled again, slowly.

She had more clues than she thought she did. Hermione couldn't believe she had forgotten the stories. She was supposedly the goddess of Space, Tiamat.

Tiamat was in the old myths about the heroes of ancient Mesopotamia. Villainized beyond reason, Hermione thought, but she was there.

Winners write the history, Hermione. She had to keep reminding herself that things were not as she knew them anymore. She could not expect Dumbledore to have kept such books in his library where just anyone could read them. Especially the controversial ones about villains having reasons for doing the things they did that actually didn't make them very villainous. Imagine the shock that would give everyone- villains didn't just spend all day dreaming about blood, fire, and doom.

She slapped the book shut.

There was only one place she had not looked in the library and that was the Restricted Section. Inherently, Hermione knew that if Dumbledore hadn't wanted people to know about certain things, he wouldn't have left the knowledge _anywhere_, especially in the section that only smart people could get in. Or idiotic sneaks like Harry and Ron who did everything of their own volition in the school by means of a magic cloak.

Knowledge in those people's hands was generally worse than knowledge in the hands of someone who didn't recognize it for what it was to even hope to use it.

But she couldn't rest easy until she knew she had at least _checked_ for something.

Sighing, she strode into the far secluded section, feeling a removed sense of satisfaction that she was Head Girl and Hermione Granger at that and no one, therefore, had reason to stop or question her.

A very ugly word passed her lips perhaps an hour after going in. _Nothing_, absolutely, bloody _nothing_! Someone had actually _removed_ the section on ancient gods and myths, even the muggle section! Apparently, they had done it with no thought of subtlety either. There were literally great gaps where the books used to be, the other books now looking something like loose, dusty teeth on the shelves.

A screech or sob was building in her chest and throat, perhaps both, and it would bring the castle to its foundation, she just knew it.

In the back of her mind, Hermione noted that she was having an uncommonly great amount of rage as of late, rage that could not be attributed to her moon time.

It didn't matter. Something very wrong was happening and Hermione couldn't escape the acuity that she was being had. Someone was having her on.

Grudgingly, Hermione trekked back to her table, gathered up her things- as well as the damned Epic of Douche bag- and made her way back to her room.

She had a graduation speech to write before her next class.

In three days, after graduation, Hermione would be away from this place that she suddenly _knew_ she needed to leave. She would be home, she would Obliviate her parents, like she had done in the past that she changed can't have them looking for her) and she would go find Voldemort.

Surly, _He_ had some books.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

It was incredibly inconvenient really, what happened on the platform of Kings Cross.

Hermione had been saying her farewells to Harry and Ron, meaning the 'goodbye' portion from the bottom of her heart but not really caring about _what_ she was saying adieu to. Their friendship had never really been as firm as she let others believe, not even Harry and Ron themselves, but Hermione was still amazed at how remarkably easy it was for her to sever the ties of her old life.

_Finally_, she wouldn't have to _pretend_ anymore.

She wanted to walk away from them without a word yet _knew_ all the same that appearances had to be kept up. She smiled warmly, embraced them each with a fervor reminiscent of the Hermione everyone knew.

"Promise you'll write." She ordered them, letting her eyes go all wide and earnest. "We'll need to get together soon about," She lowered her voice and leaned in to the boys, glancing around once for effect. "You-Know-What."

Harry rolled his eyes and Ron paled.

"Really Hermione, just say Voldemort. It's just a name, isn't that what you always say?"

Hermione smiled apologetically at the bespectacled wanker. "I know Harry, but things are different now. We don't have a lot of protection anymore and the trace…"

"Is finally off us. So nothing to worry about. The Ministry was corrupt, now that we don't have the Trace on us, we can get away with doing what needs done."

She had meant to say that there was a trace on Voldemort's name, making it taboo. But she was glad that Harry had cut her off. In retrospect, Hermione didn't know how to explain how she knew that it was tagged and really, she reasoned with herself, did she actually _care_ what happened to them?

Not really. Old habits apparently did die hard. She'd have to kill this one with a meat cleaver.

"Personally, I'm glad she didn't say his name." Ron said in his best Dumb Shit-Defends-The-Damsel voice.

Harry and Hermione just stared at him and he swallowed nervously.

Anyway…

"Well, anyway," Hermione said. "I've got to get going." She began backing away, waving half-heartedly. The boys straightened and waved back.

Then there was a crack of apparition and Hermione, considering the immediate events rapidly in the chaotic manner of someone who had to evaluate a situation on-the-fly, thought at once:

"_There_ they are. I was wondering if the name was tagged at all this time around," then, when she saw the faces of the Death Eaters that had responded, "Lestrange. Both of them. _Shit_."

When Harry and Ron had gone straight into dueling positions, giving no thought to the hundreds of muggles in the vicinity and the fact that the Death Eaters had not raised their wands yet, Hermione then thought that perhaps she ought to get out of the way.

This is of course happening very quickly, and very quickly, Hermione sidled away from between the two enemy pairs.

Almost as soon as she had cleared the danger zone, the Lestrange brothers raised their wands in unison and spells were fired.

Hermione had but moments to self-debate. She didn't have a wand, Harry and Ron _knew_ she didn't have a wand. She could get away with abandoning the skirmish only because they _didn't_ know she could still use magic.

Or, at least, she could apparate without a wand. Tom had told her the rest would come later and Hermione, for as much as she questioned Tom's motives, never actually questioned Him.

Ron- of course it was Ron- misfired a spell and it rushed towards her. She'd been about to disapparate rather than dodge to avoid it when Rodolphus took the liberty of redirecting the hex, converting it mid-motion into a nasty black curse.

Ron did dodge it, but just barely and the fabric of his muggle clothes smoldered and _screamed_.

Rodolphus smirked, already forming another ugly response to Harry's disarmament spell. Rabastan grinned at her and jerked his head as if to say, "Be gone with you, wandless girl."

The Order had arrived by this point, had been there when Rodolphus had saved her from Ron's hex, even though everyone knew Ron's hexes were a little on the weak side. She'd seen the confusion on their faces and really didn't want to stick around for questions.

Hermione jumped back when an acid green spell burst on the pavement at her feet. She looked up, furious, and Rodolphus winked at her, again tossing his head to tell her to get lost.

Kingsley's eyes were on her, and Remus' and Tonks', suspicions coloring their gaze.

"Bugger this for a lark." Hermione muttered. She turned on her heel and fled the train station with a _crack_.

At home, Hermione hurried into the house through the back door, placing silencing spells over the walls as she went, not really thinking about the wandless feat she was doing.

Her mother was in the kitchen, cheerfully telling her father that Hermione was due home very soon. They were discussing dinner plans and the clink of china told her that a tea service was being prepared.

No time for tea or anything, the Order could be on her heels at any moment.

Damn it! Why had He sent _them_ of all Death Eaters? It could've been anyone, none of the others would have deflected spells for her and she could have apparated away without rousing suspicions. Blast it all and hang it!

She waved a hand, concentrating not at all on doing wandless magic, rather she concentrated on the bloody _necessity_ to accomplish these tasks and then she let her adrenaline feed the spells.

Clothing- only basic, bare essentials really- flew into her beaded bag. She summoned half of her books, thought about it and added the rest as well. Then she remembered her parents books downstairs, the ones about myth, religion, physics and some New Age that her mother had thought they could use- "Just to brush up, darling. We don't understand much about your world."

They wouldn't be needing them anymore and Hermione smiled. Weights were lifting off her chest left and right it seemed. She hadn't realized how much of her life had been one anchor after another.

She didn't think she'd miss it- something better awaited- but she knew she'd look back on it all just the same and think fondly of these people and these conditions that made the environment that had fed her growth.

She looked around her ransacked room and cinched the beaded bag shut. That seemed to be it.

Only one more thing to do.

She went to her parents room and summoned two suitcases. She packed up their bare essentials as well, loaded money into each of the cases and closed them up. She had a thought to spell the other belongings in the house to transfer to whatever home they purchased later on. It seemed a poor way to repay their kindnesses by robbing them of their memories _and_ the belongings that were theirs by rights.

Finally, Hermione trekked her way back down the stairs and, silencing spell still in place, she pushed open the kitchen door. Both her parents were positioned exactly as she knew they would be, her mother preparing the tea, back to the room- and the door- and her father, reading the evening paper, facing the room but, as always, not seeing it for the news he held in front of his face.

Hermione pointed a finger at him first, finally really having to concentrate to do this spell. She knew what she wanted him to remember, knew what she wanted him to forget. He was going to embrace his wife in three minutes, and, still holding her, he was going to grab the kitchen towel. The red one.

"_Obliviate._"

The paper didn't move, but she knew by its stillness her father wasn't reading it anymore and was wondering why he felt rather funny.

She pointed at her mum, actually feeling tears prick at her eyes, even though, in her heart, Hermione wasn't sad. She repeated the thought process that had to follow any memory charm.

"_Obliviate_."

The tea splashed outside the rim of one of the cups, burning her hand and her mother quickly dropped the tea pot with a gasp. The tea pot, fragile china that Hermione had spent a good deal of allowance on for her mum's last Christmas gift, wobbled and crashed to the floor, shattering everywhere.

"Oh, dear me!" Mrs. Granger exclaimed.

Mr. Granger lowered his paper, looking over at her. "You alright, love?" He asked her, standing up and folding the paper.

Mrs. Granger looked upset. "I know it's just a silly tea pot, but it was lovely and my mother did give it to me for Christmas…" But her face looked beyond upset now, and neither of the muggles knew why.

"There, there," Mr. Granger said, walking over and embracing his wife. "Let's get this cleaned up hmm?"

Still hugging his wife, Mr. Granger reached over and, without thinking about it, grabbed the red tea towel the same time Mrs. Granger said, "Oh no, darling, let me." They both touched the towel at the same time.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Granger were gone in a swirl of black- the luggage, white-their clothing hue of choice, pale peach- their skin color, and a splash of red- the tea towel.

Hermione lifted the silencing spells and sighed. Possibly at this very moment, someone in New Zealand was discovering two very confused muggles clutching a red tea towel, their sparse luggage neatly placed beside them.

She believed they would be alright.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Hermione had only spent fifteen minutes. Her heart hammered. Too long. She had to go.

Not moments after Hermione disapparated, two men in expensive robes apparated inside the house and did a brief run through of the residence. They left as soon as their search turned up empty, looking pleased.

Another five minutes later, five Order members appeared on the door step and knocked politely, waited a while, then entered the unlocked abode.

Their search turned up the same self-evident facts as the two men previous their arrival, only the five newcomers were much less In-The-Know than anyone else in the house that day save the Grangers themselves. They also left feeling much more confused than they had coming in.

Where was Hermione? Was she alright? Where were her parents? Were they alright?

There was a dark signature in the house that implied someone had been there before them and by the ransacked state of the home, they thought that maybe the Grangers weren't alright after all.

Whatever happened, the five surmised to the rest of the Order that evening, they were sure it was more than it appeared to be and they were _sure_ that they simply did not understand what had happened. The Order was at a loss. But hey, what was new?

Meanwhile, earlier than the time that the Order had given their report on the matter regarding Hermione Granger, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange had knelt before their lord and spoke only five words to Him in perfect unison.

"She is gone, my Lord."

Lord Voldemort had smiled very slowly and closed His eyes.

"Good."


	8. Chapter 7

Hermione slept the sleep of someone who had truly had a long and trying day.

In her sleep, she dreamed. In her dream, she and Tom were sitting in his study and he had just pulled her onto his lap. It was the signal that he was about to tell her the Story.

As always, they would wait for several heart beats, enjoying the other's closeness and the silence that was always colored through the lens of peace that only came to them when they were together.

"There are many Beginnings to epic stories," Tom always began. "This story begins four hundred and fifty thousand years ago on a planet known as Nibiru, you may have heard of it.

"Nibiru was home, but there were atmospheric and dynastic crises due to a collision of planets that significantly lowered Nibiru's orbit around the sun. This was very near 10,900 Before Common Era.

The Nibirans desperately needed gold to shield their planet from the fatal atmosphere loss. They knew from previous exploits that they could get gold on Earth. Now, you must understand, the prospect of gold and the ability to save his home and his people, had High Lord Anu making plans to send teams to mine this metal, precious even among the gods.

"A prize was offered to the two teams he sent, the leaders of which were Anu's two favorite sons, the half-brothers, Enlil and Enki. The prize was the chance to rule Earth and be favored over all.

"All they had to do? Mine the most gold."

At this point, Tom would always have her settle against his chest and his arms would wrap loosely around her. Sometimes he rested his chin on the top of her head and at others he would murmur in her ear, pausing dramatically between points to breathe in her scent.

"The two brothers never did get along. Competing with each other is what they did best. And so it was that they both raced to the planet known as Earth and with their teams began the process of excavation. It was Enki, the scientist of the Nibirans that came to Earth, that came up with the idea to create hybrid slaves to do the work instead of his fellow Nibirans (who had begun to mutter of mutiny.)

"These prototypes were dumb and strong and could barely register orders. With adjustments, Enki and his team were able to create a mass of these slaves and mine more gold more quickly.

"When the time came for Anu to check the progress of his sons, it was decided that while Enki had clearly surpassed his brother's supply, Enlil's honest gathering of the gold pleased Anu more and he declared that Enlil should be the ruler of the Air and therefore Prince over the Earth.

"Enki, because he had indeed gained the most gold as per the prize requirements, was also allowed dominion over the Earth but only under his brother Enlil, the declared favorite of Anu."

Tom would allow a pithy smirk here. She knew because she could feel it against the shell of her ear.

"This, naturally, created a greater rift between the half-brothers. Enki claimed that though Enlil had been born first, Nibiru was a _maternal_ leadership society and it was _Enki's_ mother that was the elder of Enlil's mother. Therefore, the right to rule over Enlil should be Enki's by _birthright_.

"Anu, when it came down to it, was determined to stick to his declaration. He left the Earth, gold in tow, with parting advice; they should go by their father's ordinance or seek a mutually suitable solution amongst themselves.

"So, left to their own considerable devices, and Enlil remaining utterly unbending to Enki's fury, Enlil went on to rule this new world as he saw fit and Enki went back to his laboratories and perfected his slave race.

"You may further note, it was in Enlil's best interests to demean the female power into a masculine one. Enki needed the female in power in order to claim the earth as his. So what, Hermione, can Enlil do to change the matriarchy? He must find a way to take more power and change the hierarchy himself. He bides his time considering how to go about this. Remember this darling, it will come up later.

"Enki's slave race, Homo Sapiens, begun in Africa sometime around three hundred thousand years ago, were not actually what Enki was looking for. They were good for work but they could not worship the Nibirans, they could not fathom creation or song or philosophy. They could not work magic or cultivate the earth. They knew only how to kill and destroy and work, always did they work.

"Enki did not like them. Around this time, he developed a way to graft the genes of the Homo Sapiens and the genes of his own race into the genome of Homo Erectus which resulted in a uniquely compassionate primate. Because Enlil was overseer of everything that went on in Earth, Enki was forced to share the plans with him over these new prototypes. As a result, Enlil, with his mastery over Earth created a setting where the environment, called "Eden" would be controlled for the prototype of the new race of Homo Erectus, "Adam". Enki did not want his creation to be in a controlled environment. He wanted to study him in a natural setting and wanted him to grow. He wanted to see how much his creation was capable of. Enlil though, was in charge. He took over Enki's project and continued to deny the curious nature of the Human, restricting his natural progress with orders, fear and delusions.

"Meanwhile, outside of Earth on a planet known as Apsu, a female known as Tiamat, a being born of the primordial energies, somewhat like Anu himself, had been working on creating something of her own. She and her chosen mate, Kingu, were not of the pantheon of Anu, they were not from Nibiru but nevertheless managed to fit themselves in among the others. To the eyes of the pantheon, they had established a relationship that was not decided by Fate or Anu, often the same back then.

"Tiamat had been promised to another being known as Marduk, a grandson of Anu's through Enki. The energy known as Fate, really, just an aspect of Anu, had declared their souls as one and meant to be together.

"Tiamat, not of the pantheon or Nibiru, did not care for her choices to be preordained nor did she care for Fate. While she found she could feel affection for Marduk she knew that she could never be herself with him. Tiamat loved Kingu, together they were greater and more powerful and their respective powers, Space and Time, when merged into one force, were terrible to behold. She chose Kingu over Marduk, much to the consternation and fury of the other beings. Marduk in particular did not care for this rejection and in a rage gathered an army of the other beings to go against Tiamat. She and her chosen were far too dangerous to be left to their own ambitious devices, he told them. And the pantheon thought this was true. Tiamat and Kingu were frightening strangers who had come from somewhere distant, foreign. If they did not want to integrate with their kind, then they did not need to exist among their kind.

"In response, Tiamat and Kingu merged their powers and created something to overpower even Fate: Destiny. The powers of Space and Time merged into tablets where they could be read and activated at will. When the forces Marduk had gathered learned of this they were thrown into waves of terror.

"Tiamat, reasoning that something hidden in plain sight was the best hidden of all, went to the planet called Earth and fashioned secretly with her powers of Space a great realm beneath the earth itself that without the addition of Kingu, was forever Timeless. There she prepared a hiding place and hastened back to Kingu's side."

"On her arrival back in Apsu, Tiamat found her children, her creations, under attack and Tiamat knew she would not be able to flee with her mate. Instead, she went to her home with the Tablets and there found Kingu waiting for her. Rapidly she explained what they could do with the Tablets before they were forced to fight and she told him of the place she had made on Earth.

"Resolving to hurry, Tiamat and Kingu focused on a long term Destiny that would forever shape the orders given to it by anyone other than themselves. Together they planned quickly for every foreseeable eventuality and constructed a plan. Both knew that in any event, Earth is where they would go." Here is where Tom would casually tighten his arms around her and his chin would rest on her shoulder.

"Finally, knowing that of either of them, he was the one most likely to escape, Tiamat gave the Tablets to Kingu's care. He took them and they refused to say farewell to each other.

"They met Marduk's army on their own ground and seeing their dead children, their creations, Tiamat and Kingu flew into a rage of their own and so the battle began. At long last, Tiamat was felled by Marduk himself and Kingu was captured. Marduk, aggrieved because he loved her but caught in a battle frenzy, rent her body in two with his weapon while Kingu struggled and looked on.

"After retrieving the Tablets from Kingu, Enki -who had been called with his brother from Earth to aid in the battle- slew Kingu as well, also rending his body. In this takeover, the creations of Tiamat and Kingu were summarily executed. Being the one to slay Kingu and therefore take the Tablets, the Tablets were Enki's by battle right. He returned to Earth in short order with a secret weapon he would soon resolve to learn how to operate."

Tom would heave a tired sigh now and he would turn his head away from her.

"What the beings that went against Tiamat and Kingu did not know was the plan the two lovers had put into motion in the event they should both be slain.

"With their knowledge of Transmigration, Disambiguation, Time, Space, and Destiny, Tiamat was able to prevent the death that would have resulted from her loss by splitting her being into two parts, the Conscious aspect and the Subconscious aspect. Kingu did the same.

"Upon reaching the Earth's atmosphere as they fell, the particular atmospheric laws of the planet took hold and sent them into different areas of a land near Africa. There, the subconscious aspect of Tiamat took shape from only the subconscious qualities of her being and a woman manifested from the resultant energies. She landed in the deserts of a land very near what is now Mesopotamia.

"The other half of Tiamat, the conscious aspect, formed into another woman almost a twin of the subconscious aspect but for the fact that this one was light where the other was dark. She landed in a pretty oasis that Enlil and Enki called Eden.

"Here, the conscious half of Tiamat wakes in confusion. A man is hovering over here and she doesn't know who he is, who she is, where she is. She knows she is in a body that this body is hers, fashioned after her essence. She also knows that something has happened to her and she feels something like Loss.

"But all of this is background noise. Right now, she can't move her arms and legs and she really wants to. She doesn't want to be around this man and she doesn't want him touching her. Her body is tingling from the memory of his hands and she doesn't want to know what he was doing to her while she wasn't aware of it.

"He's speaking and somehow she understands that he is telling her she is his, she was a gift. She's fairly certain this isn't true.

"Now he's moving her legs apart and a foreign sensation grips her belly. She feels strange, wrong. Her head swims and from an involuntary muscular lurch, she curls inward and rolls onto her belly where she gasps and heaves.

"The man continues to touch her and now she feels cold but there's a powerful pulse growing in her chest and it's suddenly easier to make her limbs obey her mind. She lifts herself shakily up and tries to scramble away but the man catches her by the ankle and drags her roughly back toward him. Now his touching is rougher, like he thinks she simply needs his guidance and a little punishment.

"Finally, her throat works and a long, high scream spills from her lips. It is cut off when the man enters her harshly from behind and pushes her face into the ground."

Tom takes a drink at this part. He always brooded quietly during the retelling, but then he always managed to recover so nicely once he'd downed his drink.

"After a time, he forces her onto her back and enters her again. She is horrified to see bright red liquid running down her legs, knowing inherently she shouldn't be losing so much of it.

"Finally, the man grunts and rolls off of her, collapsing on the soft green ground next to her. Almost immediately, he grows still and his chest rises and falls.

"Now her awareness spreads outward and there is a beautiful blue sky above her. Warmth on her skin eases the pain on her body and her eyes look for the source, finding a great amber disc resting over the land.

"Something soft nuzzles her tear stained face and she turns her head to see a plump gray bird watching her. Its sweetness brings a smile to her face and a lump to her throat. Feebly, she reaches out with a finger to touch its breast and with a gentle coo it jumps onto her finger. Carefully, the dove flaps its wings and, entranced, she rises from her supine position and finds balance on her feet.

"The man stirs on the ground next to her and she looks down to see him appraising this new angle of her body. Hatred, sickness, fury, all wash through her veins like the burning cold of dry ice and her lips lift in a snarl.

"'You are no master of mine, pig of Eden,' she spat. At a whisper from the dove, she screamed out a name that had the garden bursting with noise and from the trees nearby doves swirled around her and took her from the man she called Pig and the place he called her His.

"When the doves brought her to ground, she found herself at the edge of the desert facing a small settlement. The dove that came to her first cooed weakly up at her, lovingly, and died in her hands having given its life to see her to safety.

"She wept for this dear friend and laid its body in the sands, knowing that it was no longer there.

"Now, it's important to know what happened after the aspect that would come to be called Lilith was taken from the garden. Adam, Pig of Eden, had demanded from Enlil to have another woman. This time, one that would listen to him. Enlil told Enki to create another human to balance Adam's existence. Enki made Eve.

"After some time had passed for the first humans in Eden, a happily ignorant life, though riddled with rules and delusions. There was, of course, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that sat in the heart of their world and of which they were not allowed to partake. Their creator said only that it was forbidden. And so, they did not partake.

"Enki did not like the rule Enlil had forced on his projects. The fruit would aid in their spiritual growth and anyway, observing these ignorant toys was not what he'd ever had in mind.

"Stealing into the garden, Enki made himself into the guise of the serpent, feeling it appropriate for what he was about to do. Long had his observations revealed that while Eve was not in control in an overt manner in the so called marriage Enlil had created, he had seen for himself that Adam had come to respect her and was quite happy to indulge her. It seemed to Enki that the woman was in charge after all, but subtlety was her calling.

"As planned, because Enki had also learned that these new humans were creatures of habit, Eve was sitting very near the tree humming to herself as she often did daily when the sun was at its lowest.

He watched her for a moment before hissing right up to her and whispering of all the things Enlil wanted to keep from them and of all the things she could learn. Eve was curious, not just by nature but by design. Enki had enjoyed slipping a little extra in her programming before offering her to his brother. He played on that design now and watched with pride as she did not hesitate to eat of the forbidden. And he watched with pleasure as, per routine, Adam came to find her and she assuaged his fears and placed another fruit in his palm. Wasteful, Enki thought, and his body rippled with laughter.

"When Enlil came to find them whenever he felt he should, sometimes it was annoyingly close to the time he'd last left and at other times it was very far from the last visit, he, Enki, did not bother to steal away again. Enlil would know who was behind this and he quite liked to see his brother's face when he realized it anyway. And so, Enlil of course was beside himself, he bellowed and raged at the quivering, terrified humans- who, of course, could now see Enlil for what he was- and he banished them from his garden. Then he turned his fury to the serpent in the tree that was now Enki in the tree- eating of the fruit as he always did- and Enlil also banished him from the garden. Enki supposed that was fair enough because _he_ hadn't created the garden after all. He stood contemplating near the gates where the humans sobbed bitterly and ashamedly and he smiled. Finally. He created clothes and approached them gently with a frown of sympathy for them on the face of his new guise.

"Meanwhile, Lilith and Samael- who was the conscious half of Kingu and is another story entirely- hear about the projects that were foisted from Eden and naturally wanted to ruin the plans and investments of their enemies as well as they can before they go about immersing themselves in their roles.

"And so Lilith sends her essence into Samael and together they infuse the energy with bitterness, rage and jealousy. Samael went to the place east of Eden where he finds the projects and a seemingly well-meaning older man. Samael studies the habits and knows that this old man is one of the brothers, likely Enki. He learns that the man is something of a home-body and doesn't wander far from their new place which is shabby and laughable and is only standing because the "old man" helped them put it up. The woman had a tendency to explore and she did it often. On one of these occasions, like Enki had done before he supposes, Samael waits for her in her favorite place and engages her in a conversation. She is sorely lacking. Not wanting to be around her longer than necessary but knowing it was important for her to keep silent about him, he carefully becomes her secret friend.

"In what would quickly become routine for the woman, Samael encourages her to learn new things, possibly unwittingly aiding Enki in his desire to make the humans grow with knowledge. This continues for a brief time, as it did not take long in those days for individuals to trust others. Eve thought of Samael fondly and desired him in ways she did not desire her husband. Samael knew this for he had been encouraging such a direction and he went about seducing her. It was very easy.

"Now with the Samael-Lilith seed inside the womb of Eve, Samael's part to play was over and he never returned to the place east of Eden. He and Lilith, of course, kept close tabs on the human couple and their enemy, Enki. When Eve grew round the confusion and terror were palpable. Enki, who had been hoping she would conceive with the Life Seed he had built into Adam, proceeded to comfort them both, oh this was perfectly alright after all. Humans were longer lived in those days and Enki had to wait for many passing moons before Eve started to experience the pains and the little deluge.

"What came through baffled Enki and he couldn't decide if this was supposed to be how his project was meant to go. It was, after all, the first womb-born human in the history of all his creations. The little human was quick to learn, which pleased Enki greatly. It, _he_ rather, grew quickly as well and was walking well before his Adam and Eve were able to learn. Not long after the birth of "Cain" Eve grew round again and Enki waited eagerly to study the second little human. When the birthing came about Enki was again rather confused. This second womb-born was weak and slow to learn. The commands given it were repeated many times before it seemed to grasp that anything had even been said. It crawled before it walked and made ridiculous noises when it attempted to communicate. Cain was possibly less pleased with his brother than Enki was and had resorted to mean and sometimes downright hateful acts towards the youngest. Adam and Eve, in what Enki would understand later was something human parents inherently carried, seemed to like "Abel" much better than their first womb-born and were somewhat fearful of Cain. Eve gave both siblings her equal attention but even she seemed to favor the younger.

"Enki supposed Cain _was_ a little unsettling. All scans he had given the humans showed up healthy. Except for an interesting piece of information on Cain's part. He did not carry full human genetics. This explained to Enki that humans, like the animals he'd studied, knew what was naturally their own brood and what was an intruder. What he couldn't figure out was how it came about except that Eve had lain with another that was not of this world or his creation.

"Many years later, when both womb-born were adults, Cain murdered his brother. Adam had been gathering food when it happened and Eve was home. She heard the scuffle and when her mother's instinct had her rushing out to investigate she found the awful truth.

"Certain her husband would kill her oldest son, who she had loved despite his nature, Eve begged him to leave at once and never return. Enki- and Lilith and Samael, hidden as well- watched all this with interest. Cain heeded his mother and went off on his own. Enki remained to observe what his projects would do next and Lilith and Samael followed their son.

"What it came down to eventually was Enlil finding his brother one day and demanding what he'd been up to. Enki did not know what he meant. He'd created many animals and different versions of his Adam and Eve all over the planet and most had died. None had the same family life as his first set had and certainly none of the firstborns -nor the secondborns for that matter- ever ended up like Cain. But they all seemed to develop the same as Abel.

"Enlil wanted to know why he'd created half-breeds and others and Enki again did not know what he meant. Upon elaborating, Enki was enlightened and annoyed.

"He had gone looking for Cain after he had observed the return of Adam but found it fruitless. Cain had disappeared. Enki had always assumed Enlil had scooped him up and he had privately laughed to himself that Enlil would try to use the very loose cannon for his own ends. As it was, he had been very wrong. And apparently the very loose cannon had been breeding… Or something.

"Because they couldn't find the only known culprit- though they both knew that, obviously, someone else was responsible for the culprit- Enlil decided it was again a better idea to control the environment of the humans.

"Enki agreed on a smaller level. He felt they should simply begin intervening, shaping their proven mental capacity into making more intelligent servants who could also do a far more widespread job in separating the non-pure humans from the pure humans. Enlil agreed to this and so the brothers and the other Nibirans set themselves up as gods and creators among the humans, both natives of the planet and the slave race.

"They continued intervening in humanity's physical, social, intellectual and consciousness evolution for many, many years. They conditioned them to a mental matrix of patriarchal hierarchy- as per Enlil's orders- violence, obedience, and disregard for the consciousness of underlings.

"This master-slave mentality became known among the Nibirans as Godspell. A spell utilizing biological manipulations and natural energy fields to program in humans and most underlings the desire to be led, and the desire to serve, build and survive so that they may continue to serve, build, and be led. The only wrench in this design was the infestation of non-pure half-breed hybrid creatures. It wasn't just the unknown source that became the problem anymore. Natural inhabitants of the Earth were breeding with the humans, with the half-breeds and even with some of the Nibirans. The population wasn't very controlled anymore and for once the brothers agreed that something needed done.

"In a joint effort, a worldwide extermination plan was set into motion. Enlil would bring about the great deluge and only the chosen few would be allowed to survive. Enki was skeptical but agreed it was the best way to regain control. Each brother and other rulers of the regions of earth were allowed to pick a bloodline of slaves and save them. The animals too were not to go to waste. Enki chose the line of his first projects, a man by the name of Noah. He instructed him to build a great boat and to await other minor families and animals. Noah, like a good little slave, obeyed.

"After the Deluge, around thirteen thousand years ago, the Nibirans had their slaves build cities in the Fertile Crescent region and bade the slaves to call them Gods. These gods lived in luxury and controlled their Earth slaves through priest-kings that were the- now under control- hybrid descendants of their own earth lovers. This was the spiritual manipulation that Enki had originally wanted.

"By Enki's well thought out argument, the Nibirans taught their slaves information and skills so they could best serve their masters, their needs and the expedition's mining mission- skills in astronomy, mathematics, agriculture, herding, writing, architecture and geology. Several gods dictated memoirs to slave scribes. These memoirs recorded the dictating gods' personal slants on the formation of the Solar System, history on Nibiru, the expedition to Earth, the Flood, and the god's take on current events.

" Because the Deluge had only been half successful in exterminating the frightful non-pure creatures, and because Enki and Enlil still disagreed, often with violence, on many things, the gods divided into competing lineages of Enki's chosen lines versus the chosen lines of Enlil. As part of this competition- Enkiites vs. Enlilites- the gods taught their slaves the skills and mind set of genocidal war, violence, slaving and defoliation. Each god insisted on unquestioning obedience to him or her and demanded his or her slaves to hate and fight opponent gods' kings and slaves.

"Some humans escaped into the hinterlands, away from the gods' wars. No more would they be fodder for spears, arrows and chariots. They'd also escape terrible technological killing devices of the gods: explosives, lasers, gas and biological agents.

"These escaped humans found their way to what is known as Ur. They were recruited by a king known as Menon. Menon had a general, Simmos. Simmos was a good man and a good general. He was also the victim of forces beyond his control.

"Samael and Lilith had been very busy in the intervening years between begetting Cain and the formation of the post-Deluge civilizations. They had recruited many followers to their cause, planted secret allies in necessary positions world-wide. With their memories returned to them, both knew they lacked a crucial element to their rise to power. Never would they be what they were until they were reunited with their other halves. The subconscious aspects of Tiamat and Kingu were still missing.

"Lilith had tried to enter the secret underground place she as Tiamat had created long ago but found that it was barred to her. Recognizing the bitter futility, Lilith, ever improvising, began to befriend the grown seeds she and Samael had planted. Allies were what they needed: an army. But after a time, this was not enough. The allies needed action and so did she and Samael. The preserved bloodline of Noah was a promising place to start and Samael waited until the great-grandson of Noah, Cush, was conceiving with his wife. He, using his powers of transmigration and disambiguation, possessed the body of the child that would be known as Nimrod to the world. He waited to be born.

"Meanwhile, Lilith went about faking her myth among the humans. The doves that had once saved her were happy to serve her again and she had them take her to the desert outside of a human town, as before. There, naked and looking the worse for wear, Lilith wandered into their midst where she was taken in by a man in charge. The man was called Simmos.

"So enchanted by her was he that Simmos eventually wed Lilith, who did not go by that name any longer. When asked, she said only that she had come from the doves and the wild and so the legend of this beautiful woman spread. Many believed her to be a goddess. She did not claim that or otherwise, merely let the word spread. The people called her Shinar. The other names she would eventually be known as were Sammuramat, Semiramis, and eventually, Inanna.

"Together with his wife, Simmos traveled the land of war campaigns for his King Menon. Simmos found Shinar to have a good mind for strategy and he often let her plan the battles. They won so many, eventually Menon had to have a feast in their honor and upon seeing Shinar, Menon had to have her for himself. This was precisely want she wanted. After Simmos had "killed himself from the grief of losing her" -which means, of course, he was murdered by Menon's men- Shinar was wed to Menon who rightfully had first claim to his general's property.

"Queen Shinar was such a favorite of the people, the land of Menon came to be called Shinar, which then was known as Sumer. There in Sumer, Shinar, now called Semiramis, was preparing to put her second plan into motion: become High Queen. She did this by utilizing the simple trickery of females.

"Semiramis, after gaining word from Samael by means of Nimrod, seduced Menon and had him promise to grant her one wish. This wish was to rule his kingdom for one day. Menon agreed and the next day Semiramis held a great banquet full of men she had already won the loyalty of. There she had Menon publicly announce her Queen over even him, for one day. Because she was legally free to do so, Semiramis then ordered Menon killed and the men that she won the loyalty of were quick to execute the very surprised king.

"Now in a position to rule and make a king of her own choosing, Semiramis waited for Nimrod to enter her kingdom. She did not have to wait long. When Nimrod arrived they wed and fairly immediately set about spreading their empire. In the name of the gods they built great ziggurats and cities, taught the people magic and other powers over the universe. Their armies fought with weapons and magic both, gaining them the upper hand every time.

"Around this time, Semiramis was also masquerading as a goddess to the people and a fellow Nibiran to the other "gods." She went by the name Inanna.

"Inanna wanted to build temples in her honor and as Semiramis, the high priestess to Inanna, she ordered it done.

"So great was Inanna's influence among the people, she who had set herself up to be "Queen of Heaven," eventually the other gods came to meet her as well. Enki quite liked her and even Anu, on one of his visits to Earth, declared her his favorite "granddaughter."

Tom's voice began to fade out and Hermione knew she was waking up. It was just a dream, she knew. If she had been with Tom for real, he would not have let her wake up until he'd finished his story. Still though, she tried to go back, fought to hear his low voice murmuring the story that she knew now was their memoir.

"…around two thousand twenty three Before Common Era…" she heard him saying, "…the wars of the gods climaxed in thermonuclear genocide of slaves in Canaan and Mesopotamia," but that wasn't how the story went. She must have missed a lot of it between waking up and falling back asleep.

"The unexpected fallout from the nuking… forced the gods… to scatter over or exit Earth en masse."

There was an exaggerated crash outside her door and Hermione shot up, gasping.

Blinking green digits on the face of the clock told her she'd been disturbed three hours before the sun rose. With a groan, she flopped back onto the sheets and measured her breaths.

Day two was starting earlier than she had expected but there was no way she'd fall back asleep now. In the room next to her, a couple- the one's who'd made the noise- were shushing and giggling to each other.

Shower first then. Coffee next. Then she'd devise a game plan. It shouldn't be too hard to find both a radical political leader and terrorist extremist in London should it?

She couldn't use the taboo name. If the Brothers Lestrange responded to it, that was one thing. It was quite another if someone else, _not_ in the know decided to make his bones with the Golden Girl.

The even more obvious means of contact was out of the question as well. Tom hadn't responded to her since she'd left Kings Cross. Not that he was ignoring her, it was more like he didn't know she couldn't get through.

Hermione wondered if he knew he couldn't get through to her either. Maybe he hadn't tried.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

After the first bracing sip of coffee, Hermione felt the mental fog clear away in her head.

Perhaps it would be best to come to Tom better prepared than she was at present. Of course, it was one thing for him to teach her the many basics that would serve as her foundation to re-remembering their history. It was quite another to continue to rely on him when it was really high time she started taking up the slack.

It helped that her fresh memories supplied the confirmation she needed to know that it was perfectly in her nature to go on her own and let Tom contact her when he pleased, as that was how things always were with them . It simply wasn't her way to live and breathe in Tom's shadow, just as it wasn't his way to do the same. Theirs was a very refreshing relationship, if you could indeed call it that. She'd never felt the need to slap on label on them. They just… Were.

The noises in the neighboring hotel room had finally quieted down and the first fingers of daylight were stretching over the city skyline, staining the waters of the Thames a gentle pink.

Looking at the water in the sunrise made her nostalgic, the kind of nostalgia that was quite literally, thousands of years old. This had been an old habit of hers, watching the sunrise. Hermione could feel the ancient stir of memories resurfacing as the emotions swept through her. An unexplainable need to travel , to put many miles behind her, began to take hold and Hermione craved sands and dry heat and the spices and intrigue of the desert lands.

Just like that, it was decided where her next move would be. She didn't know how she would find answers there but for the first time in her life (okay, in this incarnation) she felt confident that the answers would come, that she wouldn't need to walk in a library to find them. Hermione believed that she would learn what she needed to learn only through experience. And, apparently like in the old days, Hermione was perfectly comfortable leaving the plans up to her intuition. She would know what to do when the time for knowing came and not a moment sooner.

This mentality gave Hermione a bit of a nervous thrill. The eighteen year old part of her that was still somehow astonished that any of this was even happening, was having a rather difficult time succumbing to _Chance_ whereas, this new yet old other half of herself was positively sure of this type of navigation. In fact, to that part of her, it seemed the only sure way of ever doing anything right...

Hermione took another sip of coffee to clear her head. Thinking of herself in twos was disconcerting on a good day and this day hadn't started with the best of intentions.

Perspective old girl, she reminded herself. It was all in how you looked at it.

So. She would not stalk about London, thinking of ways to get to Tom via Lord Voldemort via sketchy Death Eaters. Rather, _he_ could find her when he was ready and she would disappear and go about finding out how to re-assemble her soul. The sub-conscious half of her was still out there somewhere. She and Tom wouldn't get very far without those, so while he was busy amassing armies, she would find their other halves, and _then_… well, she'd go from there.

Draining her coffee, Hermione stretched, still staring out the window. How would one go about finding their long-lost other half, anyhow? Surely, there must be a thread somewhere connected to her twin that would enable one to find the other.

Perhaps that was it! Hermione was well accustomed to the thread connection. She had one with Tom as well and it was how they communicated. Almost like a spiritual telephone line.

She'd have to meditate on this then, really feel out where her, well, it would be her sister, wouldn't it? Where her sister's thread was.

Hermione was not good at meditating. Focusing on nothing had always seemed rather ridiculous to her. Tom had taught her other ways to meditate and they worked a little better for her but Hermione always had to be _doing_ something or she simply would not be able to concentrate.

You'd think then, that this finding the needle in the haystack business would be easy, since it was a matter of focusing the mind, but Hermione quickly found that when it came to searching her own spiritual matter, she would be instead confronted by wave after wave of different incarnations of herself or she would be forced to receive visions of procession upon procession of dark robed people, walking over the ridges of moonlit sand dunes and chanting strange words with strange intonations behind their voices. She would see monsters, blood and horrible battles, always would she remember falling, feelings of horror, helplessness, fury. Then would follow other visions, images of fires and drums and dancers, sprays of golden sand and inhuman faces of untold beauty or horror and joy, laughter, love all these things and more would well up in her.

No, Hermione did not care to experience all that at this moment, nor did she have the time. Focusing on her spiritual matter would not be the way to go about this. She would have to focus on the clearing of the mind… a very difficult feat, in her opinion.

Deep breaths… in… out… in… …oh right, out… in…

Cars were rushing by in her mind. How can you focus when traffic jams and angry cabbies are playing a bad ballet in your skull?

Try again. IN. OUT. IN. OUT. …IN…

Horns blaring, people shouting, god but their vowels sounded all flat and horrible! Puddles of water and dirt and oil splashed up and she leaped lithely over the mess, dodging a swerving bicycle.

A dog barked and lunged and she gave it a quelling look. It cowered and moved on with its owner. There was a Starbucks in her hand and it smelled like macchiato. Not her favorite, but it was alright she supposed…

Damn! How was she supposed to concentrate when she kept _going_ places?

Right, she'd try one more time and if it didn't work then she'd… she'd figure it out from there.

Hermione took one breath and yelped, startled. Her thigh was burning like she'd dropped a hot coal on her legs.

Sure enough, a red hot ember was glowing through her jeans and she reached into her pocket, the spelled galleon cooling immediately at her touch.

Harry and Ron were using the DA coins to communicate with the Order again. One of Harry's more paranoid ideas as he thought Voldemort was tapping the Floo Networks and intercepting their owls. He probably was having _someone_ do that but Hermione was certain it wasn't priority to him anymore.

But she couldn't tell Harry that. No, there was no reasoning with Harry, or Ron for that matter.

Sighing, Hermione thought very seriously about bashing her head against the wall. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten about the bloody DA coins! They had a locator on them based on the (paranoid) possibility that someone in the Order would get captured, murdered or really anything… Alright, maybe that one wasn't so paranoid.

Hermione considered the merits of removing the charm on the coin as opposed to dropping it in the river.

On the one hand, if she removed her charm, it would be obvious to the others that she had done so. She didn't believe they were forward thinking enough to assume that perhaps she had been kidnapped and her captor had removed the tracking device.

Then again, faking her death seemed so… melodramatic? She _wished_ she had left it in her parent's home but it was too late for that now. Going back was simply foolish.

However… she _had_ left her house in something of a ransacked state. Maybe she could find a local thief and slip her galleon in his pocket?

Hermione smiled. Classic misdirection. The Order would be so confused, thinking she'd been kidnapped or what have you and thinking they'd traced her, finding a common thief toting her personal effects.

Ah, triumph!

Quickly, Hermione donned her jacket and slipped on her shoes. She knew just where to go.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"You have considerable nerve coming here," the low, pouting voice told him. He repressed his urge to sneer at her with a vicious will.

"I had rather expected you to turn me away at the door." He told the woman smoothly. She gave a soft, staccato laugh, sounding unused to the action. He knew for a fact that she was.

"Come now! You knew perfectly well that I'd let you in. You wouldn't have wasted your time coming if you even suspected otherwise."

He smirked at this, giving concession where concession was called for. "You've had many callers since you've stirred?"

The look she gave him was particularly stern, even though she laid in her great bed like a sick queen. "I'm not a child," she began. "You can talk to me a little straighter than you have been. You're not about to catch me in a trap and I'm already wise to you so you may as well be out with it."

He didn't care for her tone. He thought he had been paying her a great respect, socializing before cutting to the chase. Then, he'd been away for a long while and his type always did socialize differently from the rest of the universe…

It was amusing, on the other hand, that she thought herself to be his equal in age. She was, in fact, quite his junior. She was practically infantile by his standards.

But semantics were not why he'd come. It would be nice to cut straight to the point in any case. This place was distorted. What felt like a few minutes to him were certainly days in the place he had left.

"I am being straight with you," he told the woman. "I truly am curious as to the number of callers you've had."

She looked down at her hands, folded primly in her lap. Her dark face, nut brown and shadowed deeper still by the curtain of long black hair, was fixed into something of a pouting frown.

He did not like this woman. Never had.

"A few," she said shortly. Trying to be mysterious.

He stepped closer to her bedside, hands folded politely in front of him, where she could see he was empty handed.

"I'm pleased to be counted among their number. I hope that they have been more pleasant for you than my own presence has been…" Self-deprecation had always gone a long way with her. Some ridiculous notion of hers that she seemed to have since her inception.

Sure enough, she smiled a soft smile and reached out to touch his hand. "Poor you," she murmured with the tender, forgiving care of a mother. "You've had such a hard ti- " she broke off, looking wide-eyed at him. "Such a hard _way_ of it."

He really had to fight back the grin on that one. Nice save though.

"No less than I deserved." He told her, looking down as if the weight of his past were nearly too much to bear.

She nodded, brows knitting in sympathy. "You're very strong to admit it. There are many that would not. Hubris, you know?"

Oh yes, he knew that already. Time to plant the seed.

"I see the hubris in humanity much more now than ever before. They truly believe they are the ones being wronged, the ones who did nothing to deserve the things that come to them."

Taking a social liberty, he sank to the very edged of her bed, took her warm hand in compassionate support. "It's simply awful to watch."

Her face had gone still, but he felt the anger building in her. This was what he was shooting for.

"They have always been such a privileged race, I have no one to blame for that but myself." Her eyes, a surprising shade of grass green, looked bleak and pale in her dark face.

He frowned, shook his head, gripped her hands tighter. "That's not true. I've watched them. You _know_ that I, of all the others, can tell you that I have _watched_ them, and they have always taken you for granted and abused you on top of that."

He let the anger that was always a part of him anymore bleed to the surface in his words. "What they have done to you, the gentlest of us all, has been unforgivable."

She smiled sadly, gratefully at him. She fought a yawn.

"I know," she said. "You're very kind to let me know the truth of these things. I have been away for so very long and the others would not tell me the truth for fear of my reaction. I thank you for your honesty."

He smiled ruefully. "I must be the fool to think you would reconsider your reaction to this news. But no, you have always been so constant."

She patted his hand. "I will remember your honesty in the coming days."

He nodded, kissed her knuckles. "I look forward to seeing you returned, dear Gaia."

Lorcas Hedges had been very concerned all day. 'Course, anyone in his line of work ought to be on their toes. Thieves weren't, as a rule, meant to live a relaxed life. It stood to reason that someone, somewhere, was always hunting a thief down for _something_.

'Course, any thief worth his salt knew a thing or two about proper living and number one on that rule was to be able to discern the difference between paranoia and real concern. A fine art, if Lorcas said so hisself.

And so, when Lorcas Hedges felt the tell-tale prickles along his spine not long after a clumsy little bint knocked into him whilst he waited his turn in line, he knew he had caught hisself a tail.

It wasn't like he could knick a ticket from someone in the train station either and beeline it elsewhere. That would come later, but first, evasive maneuvers needed executing.

Cor, but he hadn't had to do this in a long stretch of time. He'd been so _careful_ he thought. Done everything by the book that he knew instinctually.

Probably, it was karma. Any thief knew their fair bit about karma.

Some time passed, where he warmed up by hopping on trolleys and hopping off again at random stops, then he started taking the more serious measures when the feeling of being followed didn't let up. He whipped out his wand- knicked o'course- and apparated to Diagon Alley.

Still being tailed, Lorcas started to lose his nerve.

They were catching up to him.

Resolving to take his chances and fight, Lorcas set his eyes on a turn in the alley and planned to hide just around the corner. Whoever came around that corner was going to get a face full of brick as soon as they looked his way.

Hermione stared around at her surroundings with a fair bit of confusion. Well, _this_ wasn't Iraq.

A blaring horn startled her out of her uncertainty and she blinked. People knocked into and jostled her like a river crashing into a rock.

She began to move with the tide, hoping to figure out where she was and how she had gotten here. She had _thought_ she had the desert pictured firmly in her mind but this place, depraved as it may be, was no sandy wilderness.

More honking horns and flat voweled shouting went on and Hermione began to get a strange sense of déjà vu. She'd _just_ been here hadn't she?

"Excuse me," she said, touching a woman's shoulder where they were both waiting for a light to change. The woman glanced distractedly at her and Hermione saw an ear piece in the woman's ear.

"Oh, er, sorry… I'm just wondering if you know where this is?"

The woman blinked but softened her expression when Hermione's accent registered. "You're from England huh?" The woman said. "Welcome to Chicago."

The light changed and the woman paused just a moment to tell her that she was on State Street before she disappeared with the masses.

Hermione blinked. Chicago. How the _hell_?

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley should not have been allowed on this mission, thought everyone else on the mission.

They were emotionally involved, volatile, difficult to control, difficult to keep quiet.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were pissing everyone off.

They'd said something, or rather, they had blathered something very quickly about a D.A. coin and Hermione and traitor, possibly kidnapping and, of course, Voldemort… They thought they'd even heard a growl about Malfoy somewhere in there as well.

And so, the rest of the Order members on the mission found themselves moving quickly through back alley streets of London, then moving quickly through back alley streets of Diagon Alley, hot on the trail of what seemed to be a very elusive Hermione Granger.

All anyone knew for certain was that Hermione and her parents had gone missing three days ago leaving the house in a somewhat disheveled state.

The D.A. coins were supposedly implemented with a built in tracking device and that was what they were doing right now, tracking Hermione through her coin.

Potter and Weasley quickened their pace until they were running. The rest of the team was left to keep up or fall behind, really not knowing what else they should do and simply stuck with the knowledge that they were not in charge of this mission.

They could only assume, as they watched the Chosen One and sidekick race ahead, they were closing in on Hermione's location.

What would they find, they wondered. Would she be alright? Was she running because she was afraid? Because she was a traitor or even worse… did she abandon the fight altogether?

At the sounds of a scuffle, the team minus two picked up the pace and hurried to catch up to Potter and Weasley and whatever truth they were about to uncover about Hermione Granger.

"You're good brother, I'll give you that." Said the tall dark man with an amused expression. His golden eyes danced wickedly in his ebony face.

He glowered at the dark man, annoyed at the interruption. He'd just returned from his visit, really, he'd only _just_ opened his book, and here was his brother, traipsing in his study like he'd been invited.

"I don't recall extending an invitation to you, _brother_." He commented mildly.

The dark man slapped a long-fingered hand over his chest. "Am I being rude?" he asked, looking horrified. "I'm so behind on the customs anymore… It's like I've been, I don't know… _estranged_."

Tom rolled his eyes, closing his book with a precise _snick_. He'd not get to read a word if his psychotic brother was going to be here.

"You _have_ been estranged," he informed the dark man. "By your own choice, might I add."

"Come now, you know bloody well that I made the Family uneasy. Leaving was the _least_ I could do."

Tom smirked at the man, "You're getting better at that wounded air you've been cultivating. Now you just need to be believable…"

"Seriously," the dark man snapped. "_You_ know, better than even me, how the Family reacts to the things that make them uneasy. You know what they're capable of."

Tom poured a generous glass for himself, made to get a second one, thought about it and capped the bottle. He turned to face the dark man.

"And _you_ know that the only reason the Family was ever uneasy by anything was because they feared the power of the one that made them uncomfortable."

The dark man nodded. "That's true. And _look_ what's happened to you…" He looked pointedly around the study. If one looked closely enough, they would see that what appeared to be a richly furnished room would in fact be an elaborately disguised cave.

The dark man exaggerated his approval. "It's a very fine illusion, brother. One can almost believe that nothing has changed, that you aren't imprisoned and that you aren't _struggling_ to have our sis-"

"Do you have a point?" Tom drawled.

The room was getting very cold and the dark man grinned, looking very insane. He gave a high pealing laugh that would have given a lesser man a very nightmarish chill had he heard it.

"Do I ever have a point?"

Tom scowled.

"Brother, that's quite enough."

Tom and the dark man looked over at the door.

"I've scarcely begun!" The dark man protested.

The somber young man standing inside an aperture in the air shook his head. "I should not have believed you when you told me you had an important message to pass on. Your allotted interview is concluded."

Tom watched this exchange blankly, careful to keep his emotions checked. He offered a gesture of respect to the somber young man.

"I apologize." The somber young man told him. "I will screen my applicants better next time."

Tom nodded and watched as the somber young man tossed a handful of golden sand in the air toward the dark man and waited a beat after they disappeared to close his eyes.

So… now the Family was getting involved…

Lorcas Hedges had put every ounce of strength he possessed into the arm that swung the brick. It connected with a satisfying THWUMP! into the face of a tall red haired boy and the boy crumpled to the ground with a strangled sounding HAAARGH!

Then he'd been stunned, bound and kicked by a black haired boy he hadn't seen coming. They took his wand and began asking him questions that he simply didn't understand.

They searched his person and pulled a lovely gold galleon from his pocket and Lorcas groaned. If he had known that _that_ was in his pocket, he wouldn't have been in England at all.

At the noise, the red head, since revived and glowering angrily at him with an awful- and satisfying- bruise on his face, began to fire slurred questions at him again and the black-haired boy nodded along looking fierce.

Lorcas Hedges didn't know. Who was this Hermione they kept bring up? _What_ was Hermione? Did he, Lorcas, know her whereabouts? _Where_ was he keeping her? How long has he worked for Voldemort?

Lorcas froze. He knew _that_ name.

They checked his arms. He did not carry the mark. They checked his knapsack. He did not carry dark objects.

They did find out he was a thief. They speculated to each other about whether or not it was possible this Lorcas Hedges had ransacked the Granger's home after they had been kidnapped.

He was sneered and spit at. What luck this thief had…

Eventually they resolved that this Hermione Granger had been kidnapped, Lorcas had found the place unlocked and stolen certain things from the home, the golden galleon among them.

No one asked Lorcas if this was true. But they knew he didn't know anything and so they eventually let him go.

After they'd gone, Lorcas supposed it wasn't all bad and he looked around for his knapsack of stolen goods. While he looked, he remembered where he'd seen the two boys from and knew they were Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The missing girl must have been the other member of the much talked about Golden Trio.

After a fair bit of searching, Lorcas realized in a haze of blackening anger that the people who'd questioned him had actually _taken _ his profit with them when they'd left.

Two names moved deliberately through his mind amidst the blackening swells of righteous fury.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had a bad habit of pissing people off.

Chicago. Downtown Chicago. Hermione remembered now where she had just seen this place. She hadn't been here, as she's thought. Rather, her meditations had taken her here.

She stepped into a Starbucks and waited in the line while she thought about what could have possibly brought her here.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"I'll have a venti white chocolate mocha and ah… What's that?... Nah, I didn't care for the macchiato so much… ahahaha! Yes, it was a bit…"

Hermione blinked and felt the muscles in her ears strain towards the voice. Macchiato? That was familiar. The meditations again.

Now, Hermione herself began to strain around the crowd in front of her to see the owner of the voice. What was it about the girl? Something terribly important.

"Have a good one Rob!" the voice called and Hermione watched as a flash of purple caught in the sunlight from the window. Instinctually, Hermione followed the color- and consequently the girl- out the door.

"Excuse me! Miss?"

If the girl got any further than this Hermione knew she would lose her to the crowd. What to do, what to do, what to do?

"Miss!"

The black hair, shot with streaks of deep violet, continued to flag out behind the retreating back of the girl and Hermione scowled. She pursued the deaf creature with grim determination, mind working frantically overtime on the best way to approach this stranger of whom she thought she knew and that was pretty much it.

After the life she'd lead, Hermione rather thought that was enough to go on.

"Damn it! MISS!"

The girl stopped about thirty feet away and began to turn when another passerby and her dog came around a corner and the dog snarled at the girl. The girl's head snapped back towards the creature and Hermione thought she saw, for the briefest of moments, a dark mist of tendrils snake towards the menacing mutt. It yelped and rushed after its owner, tail tucked. The girl stood smiling, sipping her drink and waved a taxi down.

Oh, hell no, Hermione thought. She broke into a run and as the girl was ducking inside the car, Hermione threw all caution to the wind and slipped in behind her, shoving the girl across the seats.

"Are you insane?" came the inevitable response and she held her mocha aloft and checking to make sure none had spilled.

Hermione nodded. "Possibly. But you and I have business regardless and if you try any of that weird tentacle shit on me I swear I'll end you."

The girl gaped at her and the taxi driver sighed. "Hey, you kids goin' somewhere or what?"

Hermione didn't break eye contact and waited for the girl to make her move. There was a beat, then another and the taxi driver prompted them with a frustrated, "_Well_?"

"Yeah… yeah," the girl began. "Take us to Millennium Park."

Hermione sighed and leaned tensely back into her seat, watching peripherally as the girl and the cabbie eyed each other and her nervously.

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

"And make sure you're very clear to Mr. Voslin when you tell him that Lord Voldemort's patience is _not_ without limit."

"I will, my lord."

"Good. Go."

Tom watched as the Death Eater departed and he sighed. He'd been doing that a lot lately.

"Something the matter, Baal?"

Tom turned his head slightly towards Rodolphus.

"It's nothing of consequence," he paused, wondering why he was answering the question. Certainly, the frustration had been mounting up and he didn't actually have anyone to vent to about it and he couldn't reach Hermione… but really? The brothers?

Then again, Tom considered, the brothers had been his closest servants in the old days, his most faithful. They were always with him when they weren't with her.

"My lord?"

"It's nothing, Rabastan. I'm considering the best way to approach our tasks. There are a lot of factors."

Rabastan nodded. There were a lot of factors. More than plenty in fact, and Rabastan was feeling a little worried that they hadn't been assigned any detail on Hermione. Where was she?

Rodolphus punched his brother lightly in the solar plexus to steal the words that had nearly escaped. Rabastan gasped and glared at him and Rodolphus gave him the blank look that only his brother and his mistress could ever catch the entire meaning of.

Basically, if you cut out the details and fine print, it came down to a threatening "Shut. Up."

Rabastan then realized he had been about to ask their lord if he knew where their mistress was. He winced a grudging thanks in his brothers direction and rubbed his chest.

"Has anyone seen Beniel?" Tom asked, folding his paper and rising. He tossed the paper into the fireplace on his way to the small bar and began fixing himself a drink.

"He's still shadowing the ambassador on his tour, Baal."

Tom nodded, remembering. He hadn't actually forgotten, of course. Sometimes, it helped his followers to feel involved in the cause they pledged their lives to- or in the brother's case, their entire existence- and Tom was never one for letting good PR go to waste, nor was Tom a fool. He had seen the small exchange between the two- how could anyone not?- and knew that they wondered about Hermione. With her off the radar for the time being, they did not have any immediate duties and as such were getting restless. It was time for a new assignment.

Looking up from the small but fully loaded bar, Tom offered the two a seat and a drink of which they accepted with ease. This was familiar ground. In the old days and in recent years, Tom, the brothers, Beniel and a few others that were members of the inner circle- the _Inner_ inner circle, not the publically known one- would often sit and discuss tactics or play chess or cards over drinks. They were comrades after all, not _servants_. Well, not in that sense of the word.

Tom returned to the high wing back chair and sank into it with the fluid grace of someone who simply did not experience human limitations nor even of one who had any personal comprehension of the limits of the human body.

"I expect you're concerned for your mistress and her whereabouts. Rest assured, she is safe and is on a very important undertaking of her own."

Rabastan sat up straighter, "_The other halves_…?"

Rodolphus didn't bother stopping him- he was dying to know as well. If his Baalti was looking for their other halves right this moment, then… then!

"Yes," Tom purred. Or fairly purred, anyway. He was pleased, was always pleased with the brother's quick wit.

"As it is," he continued, "I am not… permitted to aid her on this task. It is for her."

The brothers nodded. This was also familiar ground, the whims of universal flow. It was maddening if you let it get to you. They never let it, didn't have to. Ask anyone and they'd tell you; the brothers Lestrange were already quite mad.

They grinned as one and Tom smirked.

"As it follows, I happen to have another significant assignment for you. That is, of course, if you're interested?"

As if they'd say no.

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

"I've never considered myself a witch, honestly," the purple haired girl said. "It always seemed easier to assume I was special," she smirked.

Hermione had to agree with her, despite the arrogant phrasing. It was certainly easier to believe you were special when you were, in fact, very special.

But would one- _could_ one- call being different 'special?' It wasn't exactly interchangeable, was it?

Philosophical semantics aside, Hermione nodded at the girl.

They were in the park, watching people, pigeons and squirrels go about their routines, lost in their own life's quandaries, unaware of the impossibly ancient teenagers watching them on the park bench.

"We _are_… special, I suppose," she said to the girl now. "And you're right, we're certainly _not_ witches. That's just the, ah, simple term for folk who can do things that other folk can't. We used to be called Thaumaturgists, miracle workers. That's actually where the term for the measurement of magical energy comes from, did you know?" She trailed off, trying to avoid lapsing back into her know-it-all role as soon as she was required to give an explanation.

"'Course, that changed steadily over the years into more and more _negative_ concepts. Eventually, with enough ignorance and years separating these two types of people, we got entirely different races out of each other, magickal barriers were erected and we get up to the present day where there are witches and wizards that have to use wands because their magic is failing them from inbreeding and they need the tools to maintain their way of life living very apart from muggles all the while."

The girl blinked at her. "Well yeah," she said. "But I mean, I'm _really_ not a witch in any sense of the word. I don't even use a wand."

Hermione fought back the urge to throttle the girl, "Didn't I just say?" she asked. "Didn't I just say we're not witches?"

"I don't know," defended the girl. "You lost me at 'thaumaturgist' or whatever."

Hermione bit her lip. She had said 'thaumaturgists' _after_ saying that they weren't witches, she was sure of it.

WWTD, Hermione?

Yes, what _would_ Tom do? For one, he wouldn't be having this conversation. He'd have taken over the thing right from the start and directed it to exactly where he wanted it to go, leading the girl to make the obvious conclusion that they were the same soul, incarnated in different bodies, literally the other half of the other, conscious and subconscious.

But it seemed too late for that. And it was certainly too late for her to re-do her rather sloppy introduction via lunging into a taxi with essential stranger and demanding to have this tedious conversation.

Blast!

Alright, Hermione, damage control, you're good at that.

Pushing past the previous, ah, _misunderstanding_, Hermione took a deep breath and turned to better face the girl.

And everything she'd been about to say went suddenly out the window.

The girl, apparently, was very good at looking immediately ordinary but Hermione realized that she looked less and less normal the more she looked at her.

Her hair was long, pin straight and raven black with the random streaks of intense violet color gleaming throughout the very long tresses. She was model thin and model tall with the pale hue of someone who could be deeply tan in the Mediterranean fashion if she so chose but instead had opted for less sun and more indoor pursuits.

The face though, the face and the eyes were what arrested Hermione's attention the most. Large, almost black eyes that reflected yourself back at you, exactly as you were, flaws and all, rested in a face that was every bit as unassuming and ironically intense as the rest of the girl.

Hermione ignored the clothes the girl wore- for now, though later she'd be asking where to go to get something similar- and she re-evaluated her first opinion.

"How old are you?"

The girl blinked. "Seventeen. You?"

"Eighteen," she answered absent mindedly. "And how long have you been running this glamour?"

The girl grinned, good naturedly admitting that she'd been doing just that. "Since you followed me from Starbucks," she laughed. "I wasn't sure if you were like the others that have been coming around or not."

Others?

"What others?" Hermione allowed a small smile to slip through her concern when the girl dropped her glamour and realized that she looked far less unassuming without the disguise. Darks were very dark on her, metals gleamed and regular colors became what they should have always been.

"You know, the ones that bring light, the ones that look pure and beautiful but have rot inside them."

Hermione thought she did know but wasn't sure. It sounded familiar to her.

"They've been coming around? How d'you mean?"

"Lurkers, or something. Like when I get out of work or have to catch a train late or something. They really come when I do magick, which is why I only do it when I have to."

Hermione understood that. "What- what do they do?"

The girl shrugged. "Nothing. They fly at me and disappear. A bit anticlimactic, all things considered, but I guess it's better than what they want to do and could _probably_ do if they had, the, you know, the _license_, the _permission_ to do it. Does that make sense?"

"Actually, yeah."

The girl nodded and glanced at her phone. "Shit! Look, I have to go," she scribbled an address on a scrap of paper and handed it to Hermione. "That's the address to my apartment. I get home around seven. We'll grab some dinner and we'll talk about everything else then alright?"

Hermione stood, feeling sort of baffled. "Alright, sure, yeah…" Wasn't this all a little… fast? It didn't feel fast though, to Hermione it felt like they had already known each other for eons.

They had.

"Wait! What's your name?" Well, she certainly felt stupid, asking the girl this question now instead of first thing.

The girl grinned and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Neva Pindray."

"I'm Hermione Granger."

Neva grinned, "Weird isn't it? Asking yourself for your own name."

Hermione gaped as the girl waved and began to make her way back to the street where she hailed a taxi, once again looking for all the world like the most intense and uninteresting person ever.

The paper in her hand fluttered lightly in the breeze and Hermione glanced at the address. Written beneath it in large, bubbly handwriting was a single line.

_**"Don't bring the tail with you when you come."**_


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Hermione leaned back against the park bench exuding nonchalance. She didn't have a tail… no, she was relaxing in the park after a nice chat with an old friend. She was not anyone unique, no need to pay attention to her…

"That's not working very well, you know," said a voice from right next to her.

Hermione jolted.

"Oh, I mean, _sure_ it's probably working just great on everyone else," continued the voice. "Not me though. But don't worry love, those kinds of things _never_ work on me. I either notice you or I don't notice you because I _want _to notice you or not notice you."

Hermione turned her head very slowly, very deliberately to see a tall young-ish looking man sitting next to her on the park bench. Only… he didn't look like any man she had ever seen. This man had _black_ skin, black like tar and no whites in his eyes. No iris either, no pupil. She rather thought that his eyes were all iris, but they glowed very slightly in their long almond shaped lids. Dark yellow gold, maybe like deep sand with the accenting shades of a setting sun in their grains, or a galactic band of old solar light… She had to stop staring at the eyes.

He had noble features, and oddly Anglo for such dark coloring. His hair was just past the jaw line in what could be called a very blunt pharaoh style cut. Or you know, a Dutch boy. But she rather thought he'd been aiming for the older look of the Egyptians.

He grinned a very white grin at her and raised an extremely thin arched brow. He gathered his hair in long, thin fingers and wrapped it in a low tail.

"Who _are_ you?" she had to ask. She wanted to ask him _what_ he was but that seemed slightly more ruse and Tom had taught her Public Relations very well.

"I would tell you the full name but you simply wouldn't be able to comprehend it," he told her honestly. "You can me… _mmmm_… Kay."

"I'm sorry, _Kay_?"

"Yes, Kay. It's short for something," he laughed a high pealing laugh and Hermione felt the hair on her neck stand at attention.

"Have you been tailing me, Kay?"

"Mmmhmmm," he purred. "It's a very exciting time. I wouldn't miss it for much."

This man- she used the term loosely- was absolutely insane. A mad cap, for certain.

"Look, er, _Kay_, you can't follow me around right now, alright? I've-"

"Don't worry lovey, you won't have any trouble from _me_, I just wanted to say hello and tell you something very, very, very important."

He was grating on her nerves a little bit but to be honest with herself, Hermione had to admit that Kay was also oddly endearing.

"What then?"

He leaned in, conspiratorially and beckoned her closer with a spidery hand.

Reluctantly, Hermione scooted a quarter inch nearer.

A flash of gold appeared in his hand and he pressed it into her palm, her skin buzzing and going numb where his fingers touched her.

She had caught a glimpse of a gold coin and a genie on it before he'd closed her hand over it.

"Seek the golden coin of the Djinn and you will know your answers."

Then the coin faded through her palm and back into his own. He began to pull away from her.

What? That was it? He was going to give her meager hints and then take away her clue after giving it to her?

"Give me that!" she lunged forward and grasped the coin from out of his grip, ignoring his grinning face. He gave it up probably a little easier than she had expected but Hermione wasn't going to over think it. She turned her body away from him and peered at the coin, brow knitting in confusion, features reddening.

"This is a bloody Soft Touch car wash coin!"

Kay let out the most appalling laugh yet and whirled away as she lobbed the coin at his head. Blue-black tendrils of phantom fire burned at the air around his departure and the ends of his laugh was the last thing she heard, long after he had gone.

Had there even been a point to that?

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

"That was beneath you," the somber young man reproached after the dark man returned, out of breath from giggling so hard.

"It really wasn't," Kay replied. He gave a gusty sigh and flopped backwards onto his divan. "You should have seen her face!"

The somber young man frowned. "I _did_ see her face, brother. You should not misdirect our sister in such a way. We should be _helping_ her..."

A testy, "Ugh" brought an end to any further words and Kay sat up, scowling. "Lighten _up_, Sandman. Fat lot of good we can do for her right now. Without those memories, she's just another relic."

The Sandman scowled. "Then _help _her get them back. And anyway, _you_ don't believe that. Save our brother, you probably feel her loss more than the rest of us combined so stop trying to fit into your own mythos, it goes against your nature."

Kay glowered, the long narrow eyes blazing like a nimbus. "_Speaking_ of stigmas…" he snarled at the youngest of his Family.

The Sandman rolled his eyes but took out a handful of sand and disappeared regardless. No one pushed their limits with Kay.

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

Hermione pushed the call button on the panel and waited. She pushed it again. Nothing.

Had she got the address wrong? She didn't think so.

Footsteps coming down the stairs from inside the building had her looking up. It was Neva.

"Sorry about that," she told her as soon as she opened the door. "I had seen you approaching and was already out the door when you buzzed. Figured I would just come down and save us some time."

Hermione watched as she closed the door and replaced her keys. Neva looked up at her with a smile. "I see you lost the tail. What was it, do you know?"

No, she didn't know. It was madness, that's about all she knew. "He calls himself 'Kay'," she said.

Neva looked impressed. "You actually _talked_ to him?"

"Why not? Don't you? Talk to things, I mean."

Neva snorted. "No. You'll draw too much attention out here. Anyway, I guess we'd be different in that regard. I've never set foot in the wizarding world. Something always blocked me."

Hermione wasn't surprised by that. Tom had told her that a lot of beings chose to not enter the wizarding world because the Ministry had placed identification wards around the entrances. Some had chosen not to risk it. Hermione knew that she was subtle enough to slip past things like that but she doubted Neva had the same gift. But something blocking her was another matter entirely. What would do that?

"I'm _starving_," Neva said, moving on. "You see any place that you wanted to eat at?"

Hermione shrugged. "I'll entrust that to you."

Neva smiled and led the way.

*Page Break* *Page Break* *Page Break*

The earth shook, the earth trembled. The people didn't know what they'd done. They still prayed to the Creator, they still honored the ways. The elders though, they remembered the old ways that had gone unobserved and they knew that it wasn't what they had done so much as it was what they hadn't done.

They were being punished for forgetting.

The shamans nodded gravely to one another and they burned their sage and ground their copal and built their fires tall and strong. Sweat lodges were erected for mass cleansing, they opened their doors to anyone this time, even the people that were not of the earth and the tribe.

The dancers donned their best dress and drums warmed near the fires, the first strains of song began to pick up among the natives.

The medicine men began to tell the stories that had been forgotten and they all considered making the old offerings that their ancestors had made.

Women and children began to prepare and store the foods that would be medicine to their people in the coming times, they began to sing the songs that told of the prophecies and they made prayer ties en mass.

The earth shook, the earth trembled. The people feared it would not be enough. Many were right.

Others knew that the Earth Mother would take her children into her pockets until the purge was over. But they would all pay a great price first. Loss was the heaviest price. Many would die.

The elders knew that they would need to start coming forward with their star knowledge.

The shamans feared the revelation.

And meanwhile, the earth shook and the earth trembled.

Something stirred deep beneath their feet.


End file.
